


The Pathologist's Skeletons

by EnglandsGray



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Backstory, Crimes & Criminals, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, F/M, Ghosts, Halloween at 221B - A Sherlolly Celebration, Hurt/Comfort, London, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Organized Crime, Physical Abuse, Seaside, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Sherlolly - Freeform, Skeletons In The Closet, Sort Of, angels & demons, please please see notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 29,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27084976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglandsGray/pseuds/EnglandsGray
Summary: 'He passed his hand over his mouth, closed his eyes.  If he opened them, he would look straight into those of the people who loved Molly Hooper long before him.  What would they think, what would they say to him if their opportunity had not been snatched from them?  Would he too have to look into the dead eyes in the waxen face, hair a mass of congealed blood..?'Even Dr Hooper, it seems, cannot be protected by her own quiet brilliance from the stains of a murky history.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
Comments: 134
Kudos: 32
Collections: 2020 Halloween at 221B - A Sherlolly Celebration





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 - Chapters 1 to 8: It's Sherlock, it's spooky, it's Molly's backstory, and the threads of Sherlolly are always there. But I'd be lying if I told you there isn't some reading to do before our gorgeous pair get to take the spotlight together. Grab a cuppa, raid the Halloween sweets, and settle in...
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING - This work contains a scene in which a physical attack takes place against a woman. It is implied it could have been sexual had it not been stopped. The description is not graphic. But please proceed with caution if this is a sensitive topic for you.
> 
> Moriarty owns secrecy, Mycroft owns umbrellas, I do not own any of this incredible world which inspires us all so much. All credit, and all love, to the creators and to the BBC.
> 
> Huge thanks to the wonderful OhAine for being my beta reader. You are generosity and heart personified, my lovely, and your help in bringing this work to this point has been invaluable <3
> 
> Thanks and big love too, to my lovely friend K - your help and encouragement means the world <3 
> 
> Hope you enjoy the fic and the whole Sherlolly Halloween Celebration! 
> 
> Stay safe xx
> 
> Find me on tumblr: englandsgray

_Out of the shroud of the grey sea-mist, his dead eyes met mine. He was standing. Stock still. Feet together, arms at his sides. Expressionless. No hint of thought or emotion showing on his pale, waxen face. Dead eyes. Sunken in black sockets._

_I feel it is important that I record some detail of his appearance because, you see, this is the only method I have of giving this apparition the substance I wish for him. And I do so dearly wish it, even though the very notion drives a dagger ever deeper into my own breast._

_'What do you want?’ I am ashamed to say I shouted across the street. Violet, my darling, you will suffer for my misdeeds. I am so very sorry._

_Of course, he did not reply._

_I wait now, terror in my heart and bile in my stomach, for his spirit to take up arms once again. He knows no peace._

_And nor do I. I shall never again know peace. Because I am his murderer._


	2. Great Scotland Yard - 1961

_Great Scotland Yard, London_

_1961_

_Sherlock Holmes closed the door of the hackney cab after stepping from it. Drew the grey wool of his Crombie around him and fastened the buttons against the October chill, turning up the leather collar. He observed the crimson and black paintwork of the motorcar as it drew away from the curb. Its sweeping chrome accents. The frankly bizarre external luggage storage compartment where the front passenger seat ought to be._

**_Is this the seventh decade of the twentieth century,_ **

**_or the turn of the nineteenth?_**

**_Personally, I do not find the prospect of soaking wet or_ **

**_conspicuously absent luggage an indicator of innovation._** ****

**_Still, should keep the Lost Property division of Scotland Yard_ **

**_busy for the next few years._ **

_"_ _Holmes!” the shout silenced his internal critique._

_He slowed to allow Dr John Watson to fall into step beside him._

_You have remembered...?” no sooner had the doctor dispensed with informal greetings but he proceeded to patronise Holmes._

_"_ _Of course,” Holmes replied, mildly irritated, but only briefly. He tapped his hand to the front of his coat in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. Watson tipped a nod._

_The two men walked beneath the wrought-iron archway and across the cobbles, mounting the stone steps into the red-brick colossus which housed the Metropolitan Police Force._

_Detective Inspector Lestrade was on his feet and pacing when they reached his office._

_"_ _Holmes, Dr Watson,” he greeted them, gestured for them to take a seat. He proceeded to offer them first a whiskey, then a cigarette. Both men declined the former, Holmes declined the latter in favour of one taken from his own case in the inside pocket of his charcoal suit. A gradually thickening, blue-tinged cloud gathered above their heads in the high-ceilinged space as they spoke, slight but insistent drafts from the old plate-glass windows teasing it into whirls._

 _"_ _Archie Gault,” Lestrade began. Holmes’ hand paused in raising the cigarette to his lips. “He’s dead.”_

 _"_ _Who is Archie Gault?” Watson asked._

_“Ever heard of John Clay?” Lestrade slid a file across his desk, which Watson took up._

_“Occasionally – the name comes up in the odd tantrum…”_

_“Tantrum?” Holmes looked at his friend accusatorially._

_“Yes, you really can be quite childish, not least under the needle,” Lestrade chuckled at Watson’s words, tapping ash into the tray on the desk between them._

_“Well,” Holmes infused his words with scorn. “I do apologise, Doctor, if I am annoyed to the point of being a difficult patient after being stabbed in an alleyway.”_

_“He didn’t stab you – ‘twas but a scratch,” Watson caused Lestrade to chuckle again at Holmes’ expense. He took a breath to fire off his next retort, but Watson cut in. “So, is this the man you had the run-in with?”_

_“No,” Holmes enjoyed responding to Watson’s misinterpretation. “That was a nephew, this is the patriarch.”_

_“Gangster?” Watson asked._

_“Got it,” Lestrade answered. “Half the criminal underworld answers to Clay, the other half probably has one of his family quietly extorting them of their hard earned takings without them knowing.”_

_“His property portfolio is also impressive,” Holmes added, reaching into the file Watson was holding to extricate a bundle of photographs. He removed the paper-clip and handed them back to the doctor. “A veritable empire of hospitality enterprises across London and the South-East.”_

_“A front for the backhanders?” Watson scanned the pictures; casinos, bars, Italian restaurants, seaside amusement arcades._

_“Quite,” Holmes confirmed._

_“So, he’s done away with this Gault fellow, has he?” Watson looked back to Lestrade._

_“I shouldn’t think so,” the Inspector replied. “Archie was his right-hand man – his favourite.”_

_“His pet,” Holmes looked at Watson sidelong. The Doctor’s jaw tightened. Holmes supressed a smile. “How did he die?” this he addressed to Lestrade._

_“His body was found in the remains of the Borough Hotel saloon bar, the whole building almost burned to the ground three months ago.”_

_“Arson?” Holmes asked._

_“Inconclusive. Nine other fatalities. Place was packed one evening, a brawl broke out, next thing the place goes up.”_

_“Civilian casualties?”_

_“None. Every body has been identified, and every one has form.”_

_“What’s the problem, then?” Holmes enquired. “Gang member falls victim to a fire which may or may not have been deliberately set, dragging several other low-lives with him to the banks of the Hades. Unless Gault happened to post you his uncle’s contact book and a photograph album of evidence which will finally lead to his arrest, I fail to see why you hailed me.”_

_A cloud passed over the features of Inspector Lestrade. He took a long drag on his cigarette before speaking. Beside him, Holmes felt Watson still, his every fibre alert to the potential approach of The Game._

_“The fire didn’t kill Gault. He was murdered – blunt force trauma to the back of the head.”_

_“Boring,” Holmes stood, causing Watson to start. He refastened the button of his suit jacket and went to retrieve his coat from the stand._

_“Hold on, man,” Watson turned to him. “This four just became a six, surely?”_

_“Two became a four,” Holmes wound his blue silk scarf around his neck. “But I shall give the Inspector one last opportunity to raise the stakes.”_

_“I’ll do better than that,” Lestrade said as he too stood. “I’ll take you out for chips.”_


	3. The Adventure of the Pathologist's Skeletons - 1961

**_Sherlock Holmes & the Adventure of the Pathologist’s Skeletons_ **

**_October 1961_ **

_We had made it as far as the promenade, but still Holmes was not finished complaining._

_“… just because the average idiot prefers to romanticise the billowing of steam over the beauty of progress…” he continued at length, bemoaning the inefficiency of coal-powered engines over diesel. The particular line we had travelled along that day still employed steam-power to haul its passengers. Holmes would have the switch to modern locomotives sped on with all haste. As ever, he seemed to feel his word on the matter was sufficient to bring about change._

_He was walking at my side, dressed as ever in a sharply tailored suit; this one in grey, white button-down shirt, beneath an expensive overcoat. Ol’ Blue Eyes among the Blue-Rinse Brigade! No doubt the man is stylish, but he belongs to another era._

_Quite honestly, I was happy to let him ramble on about locomotive technology, as at least while his mind was occupied with this subject, he was distracted from that of my own dress-sense. Despite his apparent feeling that dressing as if one were about to attend a Hollywood gala, or perhaps dine at the Savoy, was appropriate for an overcast October weekend in Southend-on-Sea, I did not share his feeling, and was dressed accordingly. The fact that Holmes can neither understand why anyone would choose to wear a tennis-shirt off of the court, nor shoes ‘designed for extracting winkles from their shells’ was of no concern to me._

_“Lestrade!” I was relieved to spot our friend, fearing I would soon find myself being accused of average idiocy. The Inspector was stood at the railings, looking out over the expansive beach, the Pleasure Pier behind him._

_“Afternoon. Train journey all right?” he enquired._

_“Enlightening,” I answered. “Shall we?”_

_We crossed the street and approached the mock-Tudor frontage of the establishment formerly known as The Borough Hotel._


	4. The Borough Hotel - 1961

_Southend-on-Sea, Essex_

_The day following their visit to Scotland Yard_

_Watson picked his way among the charred debris of the bar, still sodden in places. Lestrade stood with folded arms, having made his way equally gingerly to the window. Holmes remained in the doorway, he didn’t need to go further._

_“Ten bodies, including Gault?” he asked._

_“Ten, yes.”_

_“No casualties?”_

_“None reported.”_

_“You said the place was crowded, that night?” Watson interjected._

_“Apparently so,” Lestrade unfolded his arms and consulted a notepad in his pocket. “Witnesses reported a crowd of a couple of hundred people, party atmosphere, plenty of folk dancing around the jukebox, queue at the bar…”_

**_Only ten ‘trapped’_ **

**_The audacity. Blatant…_ **

****

_“And where was Gault found?” Watson asked._

_The Inspector indicated the position, a noticeable gap in the debris, the faint remains of an outline in chalk. Alongside this almost comical sight, was a blackened, much-reduced but still substantial timber. Part of a beam. Holmes looked at the ceiling._

_“He could have been unconscious when the blaze began, this great lump of wood could have easily killed him if it fell on him...”_

_“No,” Holmes still hadn’t moved from his position. “Though the ceiling is damaged the joists remain intact.” He indicated. “The construction of this building does not suggest there might have been pillars or any other feature requiring such mammoth timbers to sit at a convenient height from which to fall and kill a man.”_

_“That beam was found lying across the back of his head,” Lestrade’s tone was somewhat derisory._

_“I have no doubt,” Holmes remarked. “What else do your one hundred- and-ninety witnesses have to tell us?”_

_Lestrade heaved a sigh, turned a page. “I’m not reading them all.” He eyed Holmes and raised his brow. “Let’s start with Miss Clara Braithwaite. Twenty two, switchboard operator, lives three streets away…”_

____________

_29 th July 1961_

_Clara Braithwaite’s tummy was so full of butterflies she could barely put on her lipstick. She pouted in the little mirror above the basin, thinking the horrid, harsh lights they always had in women’s toilets should be made illegal._

_She wound her way through the crowd, was jostled and apologised profusely to, but she didn’t reward any of the boys with her attention. She only had eyes for one man._

_Archie turned and, seeing her, smiled that cock-sure smirk, tipping brown ale into his mouth and watching her watch it slide down his throat. That tramp, Laura Bell, laid her hand on his arm, her blue eyeliner was like children’s face paint – didn’t she realise Archie wanted a real woman? Laura shouldn’t even be in here, Clara knew for a fact she wasn’t twenty one for another six months. Clara pushed out her chest, eyed Laura as Archie pulled his arm out of her talons and wound it around Clara’s shoulders, pulled her into a rough, beer and French tobacco flavoured kiss. He was divine. He swept his dark blonde hair back from his forehead as their lips parted, stared deep into her soul with those baby-blues. Bit his lower lip. He was worth the wait._

_This was what being a film star’s wife must be like, she mused a while later, sat on his knee, his hand on her bare thigh, lips at her throat. She batted him away, scolded him, reminded him she was a good girl._

_“What if this was our last night, pigeon?” he breathed in her ear. “Would you be a good girl then?”_

_“Last night as what?” she cooed. “Is that a ring box in your pocket..?”_

_She stopped. Archie had frozen. His face was the picture of shock. And something else. Something Clara recognised with a sickening dread. She followed his line of sight. Across the room, a pretty red-head in her Sunday best stood stock still, staring back at Archie._

_Clara quite suddenly found herself plonked on the vinyl covered bench, she almost slipped from it. Archie walked towards the unknown woman with a purpose which could only end in the sort of kiss that really did happen in films. Clara heard mocking laughter nearby, felt her face flame, her heart rate rise… but as soon as she saw that a fight had broken out, her and her friends left._

_Harry Sinclair had only come to The Borough to find a rebound snog, ideally in full view of Clara Braithwaite. Spotting her, he thanked his lucky stars she had dumped him that afternoon, if that was the kind of slapper she turned into for a creep like Archie Gault. He hadn’t even been in Southend for years – they’d been kids when he took her to the pictures, and it was only once. Harry had taken her eight separate times, and he always paid for chips or rides at the fairground, or whatever she wanted. He’d taken her home to his Mum. The pain in his chest was intense, he felt a viciousness rise as he watched Gault manhandle her, push his grubby fingers up her mini-skirt. Then – the sleazy git – he’d only gone and left Clara sat on her tod while he stuck his tongue down some posh bird’s throat._

_Someone knocked into him and his pint sloshed down his new shirt. He turned around and – he really was sorry – shoved that weirdo who was always in here by 10 a.m., knocking back special brew and chain-smoking. The man staggered backwards, but Harry didn’t know whether he fell, because he’d already turned back towards Archie, seeing red and deciding staking his claim was the most sensible course of action. But he did hear a thud._

_The next thing he knew, someone grabbed his jacket from behind and launched him across a table. He crashed onto the floor, covering his head as feet trampled and kicked him. He couldn’t see what was going on, but he could hear people shouting - loads of people - and a woman screaming. As soon as he could, he got up and joined the mad rush for the door._

_Laura Bell had a mind to report the doorman for assault – her upper arm was throbbing from where she’d been marched out of the bar. She had shown the bruises to the policeman, assuring him her dad, who was the Manager of Woolworths, would be making an official complaint in the morning. The Borough was going to the dogs._

_She did find it a bit odd, though, that while she was being shoved out of the door along with everyone else, one bloke was being held back by the bar staff. He must have been the idiot who started the fight. She hoped he got what he deserved._

_Andrew Corrigan had only just sat down with his drink when a load of idiots started pushing each other about. He took his drink with him when he got out of the way – eight pence! It’s a scandal – this isn’t London! If the Police needed any more information from him they could find him at work, not that he had anything to contribute._

_Edwin Jones had assumed the torrent of people pouring from the front door of the seafront pub were fleeing the fire when he thought about it later. He recalled what time it had been because he always made a note of what time Betty, his Jack-Russell terrier, had her bowel movement on their evening walk. He hadn’t come forward when the police originally appealed for witnesses because he didn’t think he’d seen anything noteworthy. It was only when he heard on the radio that the Fire Brigade hadn’t attended until after 11.30 p.m., that he thought it might be of interest to the police that he had seen the building being evacuated at 10.35 p.m. He hoped it was helpful._

____________

_Finding little to pique his interest at the scene of the crime and having listened to Lestrade’s retelling of the night’s events through the eyes of his more noteworthy interviewees, Holmes requested to interview the registrar who had conducted the post-mortem examinations of the unlucky ten. On arrival at the supposedly modern but, in reality, offensively brutalist and (some would say) soulless hospital, he knew even before he entered the morgue that the visit would leave him uninspired._

_As ever, when he found himself in any facility which was not St Bartholomew’s Hospital, West Smithfield, City of London, he found his situation lacking. In many and varied ways._

_This instance, however, was disappointing to an entirely new standard. The registrar on duty deigned not to utter more than two dozen words in total over the course of their twenty-five minute encounter. Holmes and Watson were permitted, with great reluctance and only with the insistence of Lestrade, to view a photographic record of the personal effects found on the body of Archie Gault, plus one image showing the wound to the back of his skull. Watson made a quiet humming sound on viewing this article._

**_I quite agree, Watson._ **

_The ever silent pathologist kept his arms folded across his chest all the while, speaking only to confirm what the three remaining men in the room already knew. Holmes swept from the room, giving no thanks, frustrated by the scant information he had been able to deduce about the doctor he had just met._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots of information from Lestrade’s witnesses, none from our pathologist... who’s hiding what...?
> 
> Thanks for reading this far! For a little light relief - those U.K. readers who remember shopping at Woolworths - what was your favourite bit? ;)


	5. The Grand Hotel - 1961

_Leigh-on-Sea_

_Later that day_

_Inspector Lestrade had accompanied Holmes and Watson on the short, scenic train journey to nearby Leigh. He, at least, had been more than happy to discuss the merits of modern engineering over nostalgic whimsy. Well, he had listened with more interest. Or politeness. Holmes used to find he was sure of the difference between these two things - in that he disregarded the need to notice a difference. But since becoming acquainted with the dear Doctor, this sort of distinction had become annoyingly apparent._

_But, at any rate, the journey had passed uneventfully and with only minimal tedium and now two of the men found themselves seated in the ‘recently refurbished’ parlour of the auspiciously named Grand Hotel._

**_Most probably it was Grand. Once._ **

**_For ‘recently refurbished’ read ‘stripped of original features in favour of_ **

**_gaudy carpet and plastic furniture.’_ **

****

**_Still, the chips the promise of which we were lured here with, are on the menu._ **

_Watson had excused himself and taken his overnight bag to his room, saying he was going to take the opportunity to catch up on sleep while he was child-free, that he would come down for dinner. Holmes thanked the waiter who delivered his cafetiere as he placed it on the table in front of him. Lestrade sat opposite - he had yet to remove his coat and hadn’t ordered a drink. He was watching Holmes, clearly deep in thought. Concerned. Holmes sought to reassure him._

_"_ _The conclusion of this case is startlingly obvious, Lestrade. Even to you.”_

_“For once, yes,” Lestrade sat forward on his chair, scrubbed a hand over his face. “My superiors are happy as Larry with the findings and want the files put to bed. It is what it is.”_

_“Did you honestly believe another barely disguised gangland killing would be of more interest to me than to the powers that be?”_

_“No. I don’t think the murder is particularly of interest to you, Holmes.”_

_“Then you really were just taking me to lunch? I’m flattered.”_

_“Brilliant deduction, as ever. But I’m not your date, I’m afraid. They’re just arriving.”_

_Lestrade nodded, indicating someone behind Holmes. He turned in his chair. A woman wearing a light-coloured, fitted overcoat and green silk headscarf carefully removed her round-framed sunglasses as she entered the room. She carried a rather large and heavy looking handbag. She made her way to the Maître d’ and he indicated the table at which Holmes and Lestrade sat._

_“What she’s got for you…” Lestrade said as he stood, “…will be right up your street.”_

_Holmes moved his narrowed eyes from the policeman to the newcomer as she approached. He stood to greet her as Lestrade made the introductions before excusing himself._

**_Mid thirties._ **

****

**_Nurse._ **

****

**_Lives alone. One cat._ **

****

**_Alice Corrigan._ **

**_Corrigan._ **

****

**_Pathologist._ **

**_Obvious._ **

**_Bridge of the nose._ **

**_Yellow flecks around the pupil._ **

****

**_Distinctive breathing pattern._ **

**** ****

_Miss Corrigan removed her headscarf from her neatly set blonde hair, placing this and her sunglasses by her side on the armchair. She did not remove her coat and had politely turned down his offer of a refreshment. She was not presenting as nervous, despite her apparent wish to go unnoticed. She readily met his eye. He was intrigued._

_“I have something I believe you should see,” she began. Reaching into her bag, she removed a neatly wrapped package, the brown paper held together with string. She handed this article to Holmes and he considered it._

_“What makes you think whatever this is will be of interest to me?” he asked her, looking once more to her face._

_Miss Corrigan smiled, with genuine warmth. “Because I know who you are, Mr Holmes.”_

_“It was you who made contact,” he realised._

_“Yes,” she confirmed. “I knew you would not dismiss what I have given to you. That it would matter to you.”_

_“Why?” he asked her._

_Another smile. “Because of your pathologist.”_


	6. Between Worlds

_Evening_

_The contents of the package lay strewn around him. He lay back on the plentiful pillows, his socked feet upon the thick, deep-pink satin eiderdown folded at the foot of the bed. He had not eaten; his stomach was empty. But his mind was full and racing. He focussed on the ceiling above him, the repeating, overlapping ovals in the pattern lulling his conscious mind and allowing the subconscious to rise…_

_He put down the item he had been holding, then brought his hands together, the tips of his index fingers resting lightly on his lips…_

_He closed his eyes…_


	7. The Diary of Edward Hooper - 1956-1961

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING - this chapter contains non-graphic descriptions of violence against a woman.

_The Diary of Edward Hooper - 1956_

_15 th May_

_The landlord met us at the front entrance of the building and handed me the little key along with a box of shortbread. ‘How very thoughtful’ Violet exclaimed. Though, I think, she would have been delighted had he handed her an old tin can, so pleased is she with finally feeling as though she is moving on._

_I had made the landlord aware that Violet is my sister, and not my pregnant wife or girlfriend. You never know how anyone will react to these things, nowadays – these are modern times, after all. But nevertheless, I wish to make sure Violet is not the subject of any more or any worse gossip than necessary. Sadly, avoiding it entirely will be impossible._

_My dear sister could barely squeeze herself through the doorway into the flat itself! Just three weeks to go, and this little set of small, sunny rooms, five minutes walk from Frinton beach, will become someone’s first home. What an extraordinary thought._

_We have enjoyed a fish supper and made some progress on unpacking. I am settling down now to bed with a grateful heart. Grateful that his name was not uttered once today._

_10th June_

_Arthur Edward Hooper_

_Born 7.15am_

_8lb 2oz_

_He is perfect. My sister is inexhaustibly wonderful. I am without words enough to fill a page._

_Diary of Edward Hooper - 1957_

_21 st August_

_I find myself alone in the flat tonight – for the first time. A bachelor again. I am extremely content! To find time to complete an entry here, for one thing._

_Although it is very quiet. I have grown so used to the near-constant sounds of life with a small child. Arthur, in typical Hooper fashion, began toddling long before he was due or even particularly able, so at this point has been bouncing from wall to piece of furniture to floor for several months like an errant pinball! His sleep remains erratic. Violet tends to him during the night, but I try to help, especially when I do not have work the following day. I will admit here, though probably never out loud, that I am very fond of these stolen moments with my dear nephew. To stand looking through the front window, his arms about my neck, his little cheek pressed to mine, chatting about the day or the moon – it is a bliss I did not think I would ever know. I am unutterably grateful._

_I should make a note of the date I began my new employment – 1 st July – as I will likely forget in years to come. Again I find myself wondering whether anything I write here will ever be of use or even be entertaining to read in the future. Whatever shall be, I shall continue to make a record where I am able – I do believe it is important to remain loyal to one’s original purpose and that even the seemingly insignificant in life can have a capacity all of its own. _

_I now find myself in the rather grand-sounding role of Project Supervisor at Barata Rehabilitation Engineering Corp. To say I am pleased my work at the University has not gone unnoticed in the wider world of prosthetic technology would be untrue, but to say I was surprised would be accurate! Violet says I’ve been ‘head hunted’, but then she is so much more au fait with these things than her old codger of a big brother! My new position comes with a sound benefits package and my own office with a coffee machine. Great hilarity ensues when any of the five engineers in my team struggle to use the blasted thing! I feel very fortunate to be the only tea drinker among us._

_Violet, too, has begun a new employment. It is this which has taken her and Arthur away for the night. Finding herself a little restless at home with Arthur all the time, she telephoned the secretarial agency on whose books she sat after completing her studies. By some chance, the agency had been contacted by a client wishing to employ someone not only as a typist and general assistant, but also as a governess to her teenage daughter. Honestly – a governess for a teenager? A minder, more like! Or so I thought, until I heard tell of the girl – Elizabeth, 14 – who does seem like a bright, conscientious girl, and who absolutely dotes on Arthur. At any rate, no one else at the agency was even remotely interested in the unusual position. On the day of interview, Violet was not the only applicant, though there were few, and she won the day. As I expected._

_Violet is able to take Arthur with her and her days and hours of work are so flexible as to be really quite irksome to those of us with a clocking-in card! What’s more, her employer is a Lady, no less, her home is very grand and her modes of transport plentiful. My sister has travelled really quite extensively with the Smallwood family in the few months since being taken under their wing. I do believe this is what they have done, taken her into their family like one of their own, as well as give her independence. I am very happy for her, although I only let her know that occasionally, can’t have her success going to her head. Though – Lord knows – that girl deserves some luck._

_I shall take a walk along the seafront before bed, I think. See if I can’t find a nice Piddock-mined pebble for Arthur, he does love those._

_The Dairy of Edward Hooper – 1961_

_17 th July_

_Today, Arthur was very cross with me for going to work early again. ‘You want to ask for a raise, Teddy’ Violet tutted at me as I quickly buttered a slice of toast before dashing out of the door having swiped the still rolled-up paper. I could hear Arthur berating his Mother for my departure even as I reached the bottom of the staircase. I felt, and still feel, terribly guilty._

_I could not bring myself to throw the newspaper away. Again. I have hidden it with the other two, although of course I told Violet I had left it at work when she asked. Silly, really. She could come across the photographs at her own place of work – or anywhere. But I cannot fight the urge to protect her by any means of which I am capable._

_I would give anything to save her and Arthur from harm. From him._

_To whom I am swearing I don’t rightly know, but I do swear that Archie Gault is not looking into the camera in these photographs by accident. Never at the forefront, never at the centre, never in any position which might incriminate him in the context of these terribly violent robberies. But he is in each one, and he stares down the lens with a knowing, chilling smirk. Like a message._

_29 th July_

_Arthur has been all too happily whisked away to Lady Smallwood’s beach hut for the night – his little suitcase in hand. Elizabeth will be there - that is all he needs to know. Darling boy._

_‘Sunday Night at the Cliffs’ for me and Violet this evening – a night on the tiles, indeed! My sister might be quite the woman-about-town these days (I can see her scowl in my mind should she hear me refer to her in such a way! I mean, of course, that she leads a busy and exciting life with the Smallwoods – my nephew, too) but I scarcely know how to dress for such an occasion, let alone how to conduct myself. I am sure it will all come flooding back. Mainly, I am looking forward to a lie-in tomorrow morning (a rare Monday off)._

_Violet insists that I need not contact the police about what happened. But I shall not sleep if I do not confess as I would have to them. I fear I shall never sleep again either way._

_Having left the Pavilion around 9 p.m., myself and Violet decided to walk along the promenade some way to exercise our legs before catching the bus or perhaps telephoning for a taxicab. As we passed the Borough Hotel, Violet suggested a night-cap._

_We were seated near to the bar, I with a pint of bitter and Violet a lager-and-black. The bar was crowded and noisy, we decided quickly we would not stay for another drink, but continue home._

_On my way back to the table after using the facilities, I saw him. Archie Gault. Large as life and bold as bloody brass, surrounded by people and all but groping some foolish, probably underage girl. I felt instantly sick, wanted to leave. But I did not want to upset Violet. So I returned to my drink and forced myself to finish it, praying to God that the ever increasing number of people in the room would prevent her seeing him. I suggested we leave as soon as I could, but in my haste to depart and with my nerves shredded, I forgot my jacket with my wallet in the pocket, on the back of the chair I had been sat on. I went back to retrieve it, Violet waited for me near the door of the bar._

_When I turned back around my worst nightmare had been made real. There was Archie, his hands around my sister’s upper arms – he was obviously shouting in her face over the music, he seemed to be pleading with her. Violet was shaking her head, shrinking and looking away. Trying to get away. I shouted and Archie looked at me._

_Then he looked at something behind me, and before I could do anything else someone grabbed my arms – two men, taller than me and easily able to overpower my struggling. I watched as Archie dragged Violet to the side of the room and forced himself upon her. He – that wretch – pushed Violet down to the floor and I could hear her screaming under him, saw her trying to push him, scratching at his back._

_Lord forgive me. I saw red. I am so sorry. I will never know how I managed to break free from the hold of the two men at my sides – I have a vague recollection of stamping as hard as I could on a foot. But I was able to, and I pushed my way through the crowd which seemed to have turned into a mob and – without conscious thought – picked up what I think must have been a bottle from a table and hit Archie as hard as I could manage on the back of the head._

_I must have knocked him out, because he fell forward and I was able to help Violet to her feet._

_After that I had no thought other than to get her as far away from that place as humanly possible as quickly as possible. She was violently shaken, with a cut on her lip bleeding quite badly. If I had not stopped him, I dread to think of what further harm he might have subjected her to. We were several streets away before either of us slowed down enough to realise we should telephone for a taxi, which we did. This was around 10:45 p.m. – I wish I could recall more details of timings or faces or circumstances. But I cannot._

_I will never forget the sound of my sister screaming, begging him to let her go. What more could he take from her? Her maidenhood, her youth, her innocence, her dignity, her security – all swept away by his hand when he promised her marriage before vanishing into thin air. He will never steal her grace – she is its definition and she is the bravest person I have and ever shall have the good fortune to know – but now, he has robbed her of her peace. I hate him._

_I hate him. I hate him._

_But I am still sorry._

_4 th August_

_‘Police are once again appealing for witnesses as it has come to light that Mr Archibald Gault, 33, of London, did not, in fact, die as a result of smoke inhalation. Rather, his death came at the hands of blunt-force trauma to the back of the head with an unknown heavy object.’_

_I transcribe here the words written in the morning paper because my own have been robbed by terror._

_10 th August_

_I do not know how I shall continue. I killed him. I hit him with that blasted bottle with a strength I did not know I possessed and the blow killed him._

_Violet begs me every day not to go to the police. Arthur is beside himself when she cannot come out of her room. She says she will get better – but how can we ever?_

_The only way to ensure Violet will never recover and Arthur will end up with no family, is for me to go to prison. I deserve no less. But Arthur deserves better._

_God forgive me._

_10 th September_

_I saw him. I saw him on my way home and I have not experienced such a moment of gladness since the moment the midwife placed Arthur into my arms. He was as alive as I am, full in flesh and blood, standing on the platform opposite the one onto which I had just alighted. Would that there had been someone else nearby whom I could have asked to confirm the sight, but the usual commuters made their usual hasty exit, so I alone was treated to this extraordinary sight. Archie looked at me for a few moments, then turned and walked away, disappearing behind the wall._

_That gladness has only left me as I have returned home. I find myself now filled with dread._

_15 th September_

_Violet remains houseguest of Lady Smallwood – she and Arthur have been away for three nights, now. I am glad for her, our telephone conversation this morning gave me reassurance that time away from here and the support and comfort she receives from that dear woman and her family is more than I can possibly provide for her and my nephew. Between my work which keeps me absent, and my continual state of distracted anxiety, I am little use to my family._

_16 th September_

_It is 4:35 a.m. I was awoken by the sound of tapping at my bedroom window – which overlooks the rear of the building, and the fire escape staircase. Of course there was no one and nothing there when I checked. Even as I write this I further berate myself for such childishness._

_It is because I saw Archie again tonight, that is all. He crossed the road as I rounded the corner from the newsagent. He barely paused to look at me, this time. He could well have not even been looking at me._

_I would alert the police to his somehow having fooled them into believing he is dead, but I am afraid of not being able to do so anonymously. Violet does seem to be feeling so much better. That is all that matters._

_18 th September_

_This morning, a brown-glass beer bottle was smashed at the foot of the staircase. The sight gave me a chill._

_23 rd September_

_I questioned the other members of my team at work as to the purpose of the line of brown-glass bottles which had gradually increased in length over the last couple of weeks, upon the window ledge of our laboratory. Each had assumed it to be the work of another member of the group. No one owned up. I threw them all in the bin._

_When I arrived home, they were lined up on my bedroom windowsill._

_30 th September_

_Violet, I am sure, is moments away from summoning a doctor, or else frog-marching me to the hospital herself. It is imperative I find a method by which to control the manifestations of the horror in my breast. It is weakening me, every day, worsening with every encounter. The mere thought of it arises such a physiological reaction in me I fear I might pass out._

_When I saw Archie today, he was laid dead on the pavement, his hair a mass of congealed blood. My heart is pounding in my chest as I recount it. The sight caused me to stumble. When I righted myself and returned my gaze to the spot, about to cross the road to – I don’t know what, see more closely, perhaps touch his arm? – Archie had vanished with absolutely no trace._

_What was worse? This time, there must have been twenty other people in sight, milling about on both sides of the road. Not a single other person so much as paused. Nothing had happened. Dear God._

_I would place blame squarely with my guilt-addled conscience, were it not for the bottles._

_8 th October_

_I have been suspended from work. My line manager is calling it ‘compassionate leave’, but I know the truth. I shall be glad to be rid of the sidelong glances and whispers. I have explained to everyone who will listen – many of whom have no right or need to know, but whom I long would cease in staring at me as I pass – that I genuinely do not know how the plans and prototypes disappeared. Believe me, if I had even the faintest idea where to start looking for them I would do so immediately – months and months of hard work have been lost._

_I do not know what is worse – that my devastated team look at me as if I might be losing my marbles, or that I can see in their faces their suspicions about where all the beer bottles might actually be coming from._

_I could never do more than to write it here – God protect my dear Violet from ever reading this – but I am convinced that either one or both of my colleagues’ suspicions may in fact be true._

_I have seen Archie every day this last week. Standing, starring. As if he really did die for a second time when I saw him upon the cold ground, his spirit seems immobile when he looks upon me. His face is wasting day by day, turning green before my eyes. His own eyes are lifeless, soulless. Pitiful and vengeful._

_My stomach is a continual roiling mass of shame and terror. I understand, now – I know that he is dead and that I have prevented his soul moving on. This impotence in him is infecting me like a toxin. Every day this past week, I have felt dizziness, nausea, weakness and fatigue about my limbs as if I might fall down at any moment. I have no appetite, I barely sleep._

_Last night, I awoke, the curtains of my bedroom wide open – I must have forgotten in my disturbed state to draw them. The room was bathed in moonlight, like a beacon outside the window and there – central in the pane – was Archie. The intensity of the light silhouetted him, yet the whites of his eyes shone through the glass and, I swear, into my very centre._

_I screamed aloud and fell from bed. I dare not look back at the window. I wept. I prayed. I thanked God that Violet and Arthur were away from home still, although I desperately needed my sister in that moment._

_After some moments I thought of going to Archie and asking him if I could go with him. Somehow ease his passage into the next world. I would have done anything. My room, the flat, the town were no longer familiar to me. I was not of that world._

_The window was empty, the moon must have retreated behind a cloud because all was inky darkness. I noticed then some four or six bottles, always the same kind, scattered on the bed, the floor, the scent of beer heavy in the air. I did not know if I drank them. Any of them. I do not know._

_22 nd October_

_Dearest, darling, Violet and our wonderful, wonderful Arthur,_

_You will never read this. I pray to God you will never read this. If by some dreadful chance you do, I shall leave you with a fond memory in writing, and beg you not to read further._

_Violet, three days ago, before you set off for London, you sat by my side on the settee in our little, sunny front room. You chose that settee, you chose the dining suite and the colour on the walls. You ignored my plea for crimson, lined curtains and I could not be happier with being proven wrong, or with you. This home was my happiest, and it was all you. You took my hand as we sat. ‘You’re so sad, Teddy’ you said. I want you to know, my darling, that I shall never be sad, while you and Arthur are in the world and while you are happy and free and in peace. Forgive me, please. Please. I love you both so very much._

_One lonely, singular bottle. An object I shall never look upon again without the greatest reverence. The knowledge of what such a small, insignificant little bit of nothing is capable of will never leave me. Neither, I pray, will the spectre of the man whose life I took with the original._

_This final example I found upon the blanket in our boy’s crib._

_I cannot abide it. I will not have it. I will not._

_‘Will you leave with me?’ I asked him. ‘If you will leave with me, do not visit me tomorrow, do not visit this house.’ I searched for him, I know he was listening. ‘Do as I ask and I will leave with you. I beg you.’_

_He did not return. He granted me one final day of aloneness in my home._

_Forgive me. I love you._

**_I love you…_ **

****

_I love you…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this far <3 
> 
> Now, who is this story distinctly lacking...? ; )


	8. Frinton - 2017

Frinton, Essex

October 2017

“Sherlock..? Sherlock..?”

A hand on his shoulder, a voice floating around his chest cavity, above him, within him, surrounding him…

A kiss on his forehead. The least familiar sensation, and the most familiar in equal measure. He opened his eyes.

“Sleeping beauty has awoken,” Molly smiled with lips pursed.

“Not sleeping,” Sherlock said. “Working.”

**_Running an experiment._ **

****

“Still beautiful, though,” Molly kissed his lips, this time, convincing his eyes to close once more. Then, she rested her forehead on his and whispered, “I wish I could see what you can.”

Sherlock laid his hand on the back of her neck. If he believed in such things, he might have sworn to a sense of energy flow, data making the leap across the very little distance between her mind and his own. They were two halves – surely, on some plane in addition to this one, they could have a synergy…

**_There are more things in heaven and earth…_ **

****

“I will show you what I can, Molly,” he reassured her. Promised.

She pulled back enough to look at him. 

“Thank you,” she said, and Sherlock felt her sorrow, her loss. He slid his feet from the satin eiderdown and sat up, taking her hand first and then taking her into his arms as he stood up from the bed. She laid her cheek on his chest and he regulated his out-breaths as he stroked her hair, making them longer and, in so doing, slowing his heart rate for her to hear.

_I knew you would not dismiss what I have given you. That it would matter to you._

**_Why?_ **

**_Alice smiled._ ** _Because of your pathologist._

**_It does matter. And I know I can solve it._ **

****

**_Resolve it._ **

****

****

“Are you finished for now?” Molly asked. “Shall we go for fish and chips?” 

She looked around them as she spoke, taking in the sight of the diaries and newspaper clippings, files and papers arranged about the room and upon the bed which had been her grandmother’s and in which they had spent the previous night having arrived in Frinton late in the evening. The room was at the front of the building, with a large window facing towards the sea, glimpses of it in between the newer buildings now surrounding this one. Modestly but, to Sherlock’s taste, well furnished - largely with mid-century Danish pieces. The walls and ceiling were white and the latter was papered with a design of repeating ovals. The curtains were lightweight and in a soft shade of green. Sherlock might not admit it aloud, but this little flat had something of a draw which he didn’t attribute to the mystery alone. 

A part of him, a long buried, only relatively recently reconciled part, understood Molly’s eagerness to escape here as often as she could when her grandmother had been alive.

**_A bolthole, or two, is a necessity._ **

“Hmmm,” he was lost in amongst drifting thoughts which had the shape and feel of familiar people, places and a lingering peacefulness.

“Is that a yes? Because there’s only half an hour before Strictly, so we’d better get a move on.”

“Right. Well, get your coat – let it never be said Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know how to show a girl a good time.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's Mind Palace - creator of high drama since 1891.
> 
> Huge thanks for reading <3  
> Do let me know what you think, if you fancy - it really is a joy to hear from you.  
> I'll be posting the remainder in blocks over the 13 days of the celebration.  
> Happy Halloween! And Happy Strictly Come Dancing Season to everyone in the UK! <3


	9. London - 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read, commented and left kudos so far <3
> 
> Hope you enjoy this next block, where we discover the source material for Sherlock's little escapade inside his own mind...
> 
> Sending love and strength to everyone facing a new lockdown xx

London

A few days before.

Molly was dozing on the settee, fully dressed, her shoes and coat still on. She’d been on nights, last night was her final one for a few weeks – thank God – and she was knackered. She needed a break, longed to get out of London for a bit. She’d been scheming all night, planning a little getaway. The seaside… always put her in mind of her nanna…

_“Molly… Molly…!”_

_The sound of her name in that voice was lovely – her second favourite way to hear it, after her dad. It floated around her internal landscape with the waves upon the pebbles and the lingering taste of vinegar. Home. Peace._

_She opened her eyes, saw Nanna marching towards her across the pebbles, her skirt hem tucked into the waistband, her wellies which she had cut down herself because she could never find ones which suited her little legs, and the stockings she always wore with them visible to all. Molly smiled, so did her nan under the indulgent scowl, which she accompanied with a shake of the head._

_“Don’t go wandering off, child.”_

_“I could still see you,” Molly’s eleven year-old self was beginning to play with the ideas of space and independence, but she did know not to go too far. She wouldn’t want her nanna to be alone, either._

_“Honestly…” Violet plonked herself down by Molly’s side and pulled her into a one-armed hug. Molly closed her eyes and breathed in her Chanel perfume and the cosy, wood-polish and jasmine-water scent of the flat._

_“I found three,” Molly opened her eyes and her hand to show her nanna the pebbles._

_“Brilliant – well done,” Violet inspected the little haul. “We will need a longer string, perhaps we should begin a new one – you could take this one home with you, then we’ll both have one.”_

_“That would be nice,” Molly held one pebble up to the sky, enjoyed seeing it poke through the perfectly round hole in the stone. Bonkers to think of a little creature working away at that – it looked drilled by machine. She loved how capable animals were – and she included people in that – how nature could come up with anything man could, and do it better._

_“We’ll start your string with a couple from the bottom of mine – they’re ones your dad found when he was little,” Violet said._

_Molly smiled. “What a brilliant place to grow up,” she mused, thinking of landlocked Dartford, where her dad had settled down with her mother._

_Her nan sighed, smiling a small smile at the sea in front of them. “We were very happy, we were very lucky,” she said._

_“I reckon Uncle Teddy was mad to leave,” Molly remarked. She’d only asked about the man in the photos for the first time the evening before. He was the smiliest-looking bloke. Her nanna and her dad lived with him in the flat for a few years in the fifties and sixties, but then he left and got a job somewhere else, lost touch. Families were odd. This Molly knew all too well._

_“Hmmm,” Violet kept her eyes on the sea. “Bless Teddy. I wish he could have stayed, too…”_

The telephone rang. Molly startled awake. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, fishing her phone out of her pocket with the other hand. Squinting at the screen, she was surprised to see the name upon it.

“Alice!” she cleared her croaky voice, smiling. “Sorry – hi!”

“Hi, Molly – how are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you. Oh my gosh, it’s been ages.”

“I know – what, seven years, eight?”

“Oh God, that makes me feel old,” Molly shook her head, thinking of the last time she had seen her friend from university, apart from on Facebook. A night out in Southend-on-Sea, on the tiles – on the pull! Blimey. Another world.

“I gather it’s been a busy few years for you,” Molly heard the sly smile in her friend’s voice and barked a laugh in response. 

“Yeah. A bit.” She had no idea.

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Molly twisted the ring on her finger, felt a cloud of butterflies take off. “How are you, Alice?”

“I’m okay, thanks…”

Molly waited. She pulled the phone away from her ear to check it was still connected. “Are you still there?”

“Yes. Sorry,” Alice said, before pausing again. “Sorry…”

“What is it? Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I just… I think I have something you need to see. You and your detective.”

Molly heard another smile, a sadder one. “Okay. What is it?”

“My grandad died last week,” Alice said.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” Molly’s stomach dropped.

“Love him, he was in his late eighties, mind, not like your lovely nanna.” Molly was touched her friend remembered.

“Only,” Alice continued. “He gave me this box this last time I saw him, only a day before he passed away, and it’s full of old newspaper clippings and all sorts of things…”

“Your grandad was a pathologist too, wasn’t he?” Molly asked.

“Yes, at Southend. There are some things in this box, or copies of things, which definitely shouldn’t be in there.”

“Do you think something dodgy was going on?” Molly wouldn’t be surprised. Not anymore.

“I don’t know,” Alice admitted. 

“Do you want Sherlock to take a look? You can get hold of him through Twitter, if you like, or John’s website, but I can…”

“No, no,” Alice stopped her. “Well, yes. But it’s you who needs to see it all, really.”

“Why?”

“Because it all seems to be about someone called Edward Hooper, and his sister, Violet.”


	10. New Scotland Yard - 2017

New Scotland Yard, London

The next day.

Sherlock closed the door of the cab, drew his Belstaff around him and fastened the buttons against the October chill, turning up the collar. 

“Sherlock!”

He slowed to allow John to fall into step beside him. 

“You _have_ remembered...?” his friend wasted no time in starting to lecture him, having said a cursory ‘hello’.

“Of course,” Sherlock cut him off, mildly irritated, but only briefly. He tapped his hand to the front of his coat in what he hoped was a reassuring way. John tipped a nod. 

The two men mounted the steps, crossed the flagstones and approached the glass foyer of the neo-classical edifice which housed the Metropolitan Police. 

Lestrade was on his feet and pacing when they reached his office. 

“Gents,” he greeted them, gestured for them to take a seat. He proceeded to offer them first a coffee, then a donut. Krispy Kreme, no less. Both men declined the former (previous experience had taught them about the quality, or distinct lack thereof). Sherlock declined the latter, while John and Lestrade helped themselves. 

“Duncan Ross,” the inspector began. “He’s dead.” 

“Who is Duncan Ross?” John asked, in between licking sticky glaze from his fingers.

“Heard of John Clay?” Lestrade slid a file across his desk, which John picked up.

“Occasionally – the name comes up in the odd tantrum…”

“Tantrum?” Sherlock looked at John, accusingly. 

“Is this the man you had the run-in with, that time?” John asked before Sherlock could speak again. “When Molly patched you up first then I had to re-do several stitches you burst, like an idiot…”

“Nope,” Sherlock enjoyed correcting John. “That was a nephew, this is the patriarch.”

“Gangster?” Watson asked.

“Got it,” Lestrade answered. “Half the criminal underworld answers to Clay, the other half probably has one of his family quietly extorting them of their hard earned takings without them knowing.”

“His property portfolio is also impressive,” Sherlock added, reaching into the file John was holding to extricate a bundle of photographs. He removed the paperclip and handed them back to his friend. “A veritable empire of hospitality enterprises across London and the South-East.”

“A front for the backhanders?” John scanned the pictures; casinos, bars, Italian restaurants, seaside amusement arcades.

“Quite,” Sherlock confirmed.

“So, he’s done away with this Duncan Ross character, has he?” John looked back at Lestrade.

“Looks like it,” Lestrade passed over the desk several more photographs, depicting what John would probably describe in his blog in the coming weeks as a ‘bloodbath’. 

“The Victoria on Northumberland Street. Eight dead, every one of them a person of interest, five connected by birth or by marriage to Clay, including Ross – who was the oldest victim by a good couple of decades.”

“What happened?” John asked.

“Robbery. Gunman walked in off the street, got the bloke behind the bar to empty the till and the safe, started shipping people out, then, as far as we can gather, there was an exchange of gunfire, and everyone else in there was killed.”

“Another wiping of the slate,” Sherlock mused.

“It wouldn’t shock me, but then not much does, nowadays,” Lestrade answered, somewhat wearily.

“The wheel turns…” Sherlock put his index finger to his lip, watched a fly buzzing around by the window. 

“What, you mean Clay arranged this – did away with his own people?” Sherlock remained amazed, and pleased, that John still found it difficult to believe the depths of depravity to which the scum they came into contact with were willing to sink.

**_His heart remains._ **

****

Sherlock smiled to himself. John looked at him. 

“Every few years something like this happens,” Sherlock explained. “Robbery, seemingly random attacks, shootings, car crashes, whatever suits… and another few loose ends or loose cannons presumably cease to be bothersome.”

“You ever hear about the one in the sixties?” Lestrade asked, reaching into the drawer under his desk and removing a manilla case file which was dogeared and bound with brittle-looking string.

“The Borough Hotel fire,” Sherlock sat up in his chair, received the file from Lestrade and pulled at the string to release the knot, sending a gentle spray of fibres and dust particles into the air. “Archie Gault, John Clay Senior’s right-hand man, was the most notable death.”

Sherlock showed the file to John, together they viewed the aging, black and white photographs of the charred interior of a bar, close-ups of chalk outlines and evidence including the large piece of wood which had apparently done away with Archie Gault by making sudden contact with the back of his head. 

“No.” When Lestrade spoke Sherlock whipped his head up to look at him. John lifted his gaze too. “Archie Gault died in The Victoria pub last week, his body is on ice at your second home.”

“I thought we were talking about Duncan Ross?” John’s brow knitted.

“We are,” Lestrade confirmed. “Duncan Ross, as it turns out, had his identity stolen in July 1961, by Archie Gault.”

There was a weighted pause. Sherlock drew a breath.

“And in amongst the personal effects which lead you to this startling conclusion,” he began, “you found concrete evidence connecting John Clay Junior to the plethora of criminal activities for which you and I know he is entirely responsible, thus giving you a solid basis upon which to arrest him, and leading you to invite John and myself here today to accompany you to his address and witness the spectacle, so that your glorious victory might make it as far as the Personal Blog of Dr John H. Watson, transforming you from the tenacious but humble policeman to the Great Detective Inspector Lestrade, celebrity inquisitor and fandom heartthrob.”

Lestrade’s eyebrows were chasing his hairline. There was another pause.

“You what?” he eventually said.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Are you arresting Clay?”

“Course not,” he said.

“Boring,” Sherlock stood, causing John to jump. He refastened the button of his suit jacket and went to retrieve his coat from the stand. “Did you honestly believe another barely disguised gangland killing would be of interest to me?” 

“No. I don’t think the murder is particularly of interest to you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock looked back at the Inspector. John was looking between them, alert as ever. Confused as ever.

“You spoken to Molly today?” Lestrade asked Sherlock.

Sherlock narrowed his eyes as his friend.

The inspector ran his hand over his jaw. “You might want to take her away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the pieces are falling into place... But if there's no great mystery here to draw Sherlock in, what will?


	11. London - 2017

London

First thing that same day.

**Clacton & Frinton Gazette – Young Arthur and his Mother enjoy the Frinton Traction Engine Rally.**

Alice having sent it to her, Molly held the box in her shaking hands. Why she found herself having such a visceral reaction to it, she really had no idea. Intuition, perhaps, was whispering to her that all was not well. 

**Southend Observer – STRING OF ROBBERIES THOUGHT TO BE LINKED**

Or maybe, if she was honest with herself, it was the prospect of opening the closet and finding more skeletons than even she had expected. Allowing them to be seen. Letting Sherlock see. 

**The Southend Standard – TEN DEAD IN SEAFRONT BLAZE**

Well, if anyone would understand, it would be Sherlock. Maybe this was a returning of the favour. He hadn’t just _let_ her see the very worst of his past, the roots of his character, his deepest wounds – he had _needed_ her to. He needed her. 

She needed him. 

**The Southend & Westcliffe GRAPHIC – POLICE SEEK PUBLIC HELP TO LOCATE NEW SUSPECT IN BOROUGH FIRE**

But they were both going to need help. 

**Southend on Sea and County PICTORIAL – Frinton Man Missing after Enquiry into Conduct at Engineering Firm.**

Molly sifted through the box once more, finding out a handwritten note clipped to a wedge of photographs cut from newspapers, each as brittle and grainy as the next and each with a circled face, never in the foreground, never named in print. Often, though, her nanna and the beloved stranger who was her great uncle were, and her lovely dad. And there was this unknown man in the background. The note gave a name though, the name of the man who wasn’t killed in the fire, but was murdered. 

_Archie Gault._

She shook herself and picked up her phone, bringing up Greg’s number and pressing ‘call’. 

**The Southend Standard – Successful Local Casino Closes Suddenly.**

A few minutes later, her friend reassured her he would look into it. He also reassured her that she was doing the right thing. That he wouldn’t give up. No veil of secrecy, no void of time, no solid brick wall ever represented an insurmountable barrier. Not to Sherlock Holmes. 

A photograph, newer than the rest, of Alice – exactly as Molly remembered her, blonde hair to her waist, legs to her chin – stood with an older man, dressed smartly and smiling broadly. He had his arm around her, Alice was wearing her graduation robes. Molly was in the background, somewhere, probably having a similar photograph taken. On the back of this photograph was a handwritten note from her friend;

_Molly,_

_I was very close to my grandad, as you know, especially after my dad was gone. But Grandad never talked about work. Now I’m grown up, I wonder whether I wanted to go into Pathology like him to get to know him better, maybe understand him. I’m not sure I do, though. Something happened. Something which connects your relatives, my grandad and this ghost-like Gault character, who I can’t find out a thing about._

_Take care of yourself, Molly. I hope I’m not leading you – us – into any kind of danger. At least you have Sherlock._

_Love, Alice xxx_

When she heard the key in the lock that evening, accompanied by the gentle knock which had only become a regular feature in their lives since his sister had, Molly had a large mug of hot chocolate in hand and was exhausted to the point of tearfulness from reading and pacing and over-thinking on little sleep. She was in her oldest, comfiest pyjamas and a big, baggy M&S knitted jumper, her hair scraped up into a bun on the top of her head. 

Sherlock took one look at her and said; “Come on, we’re going for chips.”


	12. En Route to Essex - 2017

En Route to Essex

A couple of hours later.

**_I don’t know the code._ **

****

_I’m not dead._

_Let’s have dinner._

_I don’t count._

_Is John with you?_

_All those wet jobs for the CIA._

**_I need to know what to do._ **

****

**_Your life is not your own._ **

_Only it isn’t a name._

_You say it._

_All those complicated little emotions._

_Goodbye, brother mine._

**_You killed him._ **

****

**_…_**

**** ****

In the grand scheme of his life, Sherlock could think of only a few instances in which he had felt troubled. Incalculable instances had been taken up with feeling bored, energised, listless, annoyed, furious, amused, underwhelmed. Overwhelmed. But not so often in his life, had he been genuinely troubled – shaken, filled with a kind of concern which was more and entirely other than any regular disquiet. He knew, of course, what it was which made these occasions different. It was the suffusion of events, and his reaction to them, with emotion. 

It was not surprising to him that a great many of these times of trouble had taken place since making a friend, or two. Since opening his heart.

He glanced at Molly in the passenger seat of the Land Rover.

When she told him, so matter of fact, that in his eyes she didn’t count, that she wasn’t someone from whom he had to hide his true feelings because she was merely a bystander, the instinctual reaction of his body jolted his mind into understanding.

His protection of her from Moriarty, his shielding of her importance, had been the fortunate result of his blind ignorance. 

He looked at her again. She had her head on her pillow, which was squashed up against the window. Her hands were tucked under her cheek, the cuffs of her jumper would be almost to her fingertips, he knew, and his coat was pulled up to her shoulder as a blanket. Her pale, lovely face was relaxed in sleep. 

_You might want to take her away._

Molly had given him the bare bones of the information she had received from her friend, her eyes shining in the lamplight, a tremor in her slight frame. She had informed him that she had asked Lestrade to do what he could. And he had fetched Sherlock. 

Trouble was hovering like a spectre. Molly sensed it too. This case could barely be deemed as such, the circumstances of crimes committed were clear. But so as the threads of this story stretched over decades, the sorrow and wickedness it contained leeched its poison slowly and incessantly, the potential for harm was not passed. It remained very much present. 

And now, Sherlock could not rely upon a trick of fate to defend her. Ignorance might have been blissful, but it was long gone. And good riddance. He could not live without her love, without proving his. 

**_She saved you, every time the demons came within reach._ **

**_But now, their eyes might train upon her._ **

Sherlock let out a long breath as he indicated to merge onto the slip-road leaving the M25. 

An hour later, he pulled into the small car park behind the block of flats the address of which he had the foresight to ask Molly for before they had even left Zone 2 (which had proven to be the right decision, as she had fallen asleep almost immediately after and was only now stirring as the car slowed). 

“Are we here?” she looked around herself, squinting out into the gathering dusk.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied. “There’s a garage?”

“Yes,” Molly rubbed her eyes. “But my car is in it, sorry.”

“I didn’t know you had a car.”

“Yes you did.”

“Yes I did. But it’s good manners to sometimes pretend one does not know everything.”

“Since when have you given a monkey’s about manners?”

Sherlock smiled at Molly and she rolled her eyes at him as she opened her seatbelt and then the car door, extricating a set of keys from her pocket as she went. 

“I bet you can’t guess what it is,” Molly said as she took her bag and coat from the back.

Sherlock considered her proposition. He narrowed his eyes at her, took a step back and looked her up and down exaggeratedly, his tongue between his teeth. She giggled, his middle warmed. 

“No, you’re quite right,” he said. He closed the back door of the Defender, locked it. “I can’t guess.”

“Fraidy cat,” Molly smiled, setting off towards the front of the building. “Scared to get it wrong?”

“Molly, when I am in your company, that fear is ever present,” she caught his eye, sent him the sort of look he would only ever admit to her he needed to see every now and then. “But despite knowing that you did not choose the car yourself, that it has only had one extremely careful owner besides you, that it is untaxed and that there are only two possible shades its bodywork could be… I’m afraid I shall need at least a glance at the inside of the flat before I could hazard the sort of ‘guess’ I am comfortable with.”

A pause.

“I’m timing you,” Molly smiled. “Three seconds from when I put the light on.”

The pair jogged up the staircase. Sherlock suspected they were both trying to suppress their childishness.

“Chips are on the winner, hope you’ve got cash,” Sherlock stood behind Molly as she turned the key in the lock. The brass door furniture made him 99% sure, but he’d take his extra three seconds…

Molly pushed the door open into a narrow hallway. Sherlock followed her inside, surprised not to smell the fustiness which often greeted the olfactory senses upon entering a space such as this.

**_Jasmine._ **

**_Wood-polish._ **

**_99.5%_ **

****

Molly placed her overnight bag on the telephone table next to which she was standing when she switched on the overhead light. She was looking at him, holding back a smile.

“One…”

“Morris Minor Traveller. Maroon.”

“Oh for God’s sake!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading :) hope you see you on Friday for the next block. 
> 
> Let me know what you reckon so far. Sherlock is worried about Molly, how to protect her - what do you think is going through Molly's mind? 
> 
> Please feel free to tell me I've picked the wrong car for Molly, too... ; )


	13. Frinton -2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday all :)
> 
> Hope you're enjoying - please leave a comment if you can - I can't tell you how much it's keeping me going at the moment! 
> 
> Stay safe xx

Frinton, Essex

The next day.

Molly was surrounded by contentment. Relief. Wrapped in it, like the softest blanket on the stillest night. She had woken up late, feeling rested, taken a slow walk to the corner-shop and the beach, and spent the rest of the afternoon padding around in her socks. Her hands enveloped the little mug which had always been hers – it had come with an Easter Egg in it, must have been in the early nineties. It had a picture of the Funnybones family on it. It was just a little bit faded, but it had been handled so carefully by her and washed so carefully by her nanna that it was still perfect. She sipped her tea, made another round of her usual tour of the kitchen, followed by the living room, the bathroom, the main bedroom, the feeling of home and happiness increasing with each step, each trinket or picture which caught her eye, each in-breath scented with floral ironing water and perfume, real or imagined. 

Molly had often wondered what it might feel like to share this sanctuary with someone else. Someone other than her nanna, her dad. Since they had gone, Molly had only ever been here on her own and she had loved that. Never needed anyone with her to alleviate loneliness or sadness, because this place was the very opposite of those things. She had known a keener aloneness standing a foot from someone. But still, it had crossed her mind that, one day, she might be close enough to another person to show them the other things nearest to her heart. She had worried doing so might spoil it. This had been a sacred place of escape for her, just for her, she was her truest self here. 

She smiled, thinking…

_“The bunch of keys you took from your pocket when we arrived include one belonging to a car made by the Morris factory, evident from the monogrammed design. There are no other superfluous keys on the ring, suggesting that the vehicle to which it belongs is likely to be the one you indicated resides in the garage belonging to the flat. Neither is the car-key separate, suggesting the flat and the car have a single owner and, I suspect, always have had. Even from a little distance, it was clear the key was barely used – almost untarnished, despite its age. Carefully used, then, as with the car itself. This building was constructed in 1955 – there is a date-brick at the entrance to the driveway. The design of the key indicates a similar timeframe for the manufacture of the vehicle and, considering the owner chose never to move on from the property, we might assume they showed similar loyalty to the car, kept it from new and eventually passed it on to you as part of the estate. Therefore, you did not choose it. Being of the age it is, it no longer requires road-tax. Now, as to the colour – there are only two possible shades, but several models, so first the model would need to be ascertained. For that I needed to see the furniture inside the flat. You drew my attention to the perfect piece by placing your bag on it – an Ercol telephone table, with the coordinating hall mirror adjacent. Here we have someone with an appreciation for quality cabinetry coupled with the necessary want to keep it in good condition – the scent of Pledge will always remind me of Mrs Hudson as it does you of your grandmother. The only possible car fitting the bill – the Traveller.”_

_"_ _… but how did you know it was maroon?”_

_"_ _Oh, only the van made specially for the Post Office was offered in an alternate shade of red.”_

_“Yes but it could have been blue, or green.”_

_Sherlock chuckled. “Of course it’s red. It’s yours.”_

However annoying it could be, when you knew him, it was good to have the little things noticed. It wasn’t show-offishness, not really, not to her. It was giving significance to what required it, refusing to overlook. That could be uncomfortable. But it could be really quite lovely, too.

Molly realised she hadn’t been waiting for the perfect person to bring here, she had been waiting for the person with whom she was herself. That was why she hadn’t hesitated.

To think, all that time she had thought she would need to be someone entirely different for him to love her, or that he would need to undergo some sort of radical transformation to allow himself to. In the end, neither of them had changed. She had grown up, and he had got to know himself; it was as simple as that and it was as complicated as that. 

Molly moved now to the doorway of the spare bedroom. The room that had belonged to her great uncle, Edward Hooper. Teddy. It looked exactly the same as it always had; the same simple, wooden bedframe and wardrobe, writing desk, soft green curtains, brass lamp on the bedside table. The only difference was the little vase on the desk was empty. It had always been full of the loveliest flowers whenever she had been here, even though she had never known anyone sleep in the room. She always slept in with Nanna. 

She had told Sherlock to help himself, realising he would probably wait for her permission before rooting around. Amazing, really. He wouldn’t have, once. 

She saw that he was stood by the door built into the wall at chest height, behind it was the space over the stairwell which once housed the hot-water tank and had been a toasty little airing cupboard. It was now empty, the modern boiler having been installed in the kitchen. Molly came to Sherlock’s side and, as she did, saw that he was holding an old exercise book – like the ones they had in school for writing practise. She looked into the cupboard, saw that the carpet which had covered its floor had been peeled back and a board underneath removed. Molly’s stomach knotted, some of her earlier nerves fought their way through the protective barrier of comfort.

“There are several,” Sherlock handed her the notebook. “And some newspapers. I would like to take a few moments to look over them, with your consent.”

He laid his hand on her back, gently rubbing, before moving his hand up to the back of her neck. This loving action, for once, had absolutely nothing to do with the chills chasing up and down Molly’s arms.

She read upon the cover of the book; Diary of Edward Hooper – 1961.

Molly was so glad Sherlock was with her. 


	14. Southend-on-Sea - 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The missing link - huge apologies! Having missed this out, I am amazed and even more grateful for all your kind words!

Southend-on-Sea

The next day

Sherlock had pressed Molly to him and kissed the top of her head. 

He’d taken the contents of the trove, the box delivered to them by Alice and the police file he had talked Lestrade into letting him borrow, to the bedroom. He’d sat, and he’d absorbed every detail. Then he’d laid back and let himself sink into the murky depths of the case and the welcoming halls of his mind palace. 

Now, they were standing over the water. Below them, it rose and fell, dancing to the tune of the wind, spray leaping from the crests of each little peak. Sherlock and Molly each had their hands on the railings, right at the end of the pier, over a mile away from the land behind them. It was an oddly freeing feeling; Sherlock concentrated upon it.

**_Deep waters._ **

****

**_Not half so threatening with a friend by your side._ **

****

**_Like playing pirates…_ **

**** ****

Molly laid her hand over his. He separated his fingers to allow hers to entwine with them. He smiled, looked at her. 

Molly kept her focus out to sea, the wind blowing tendrils of her hair around her face. 

“Shall we walk?” he asked her.

Sherlock watched her take another deep breath before speaking. “Okay.”

“My uncle Teddy was driven half mad and driven away from his family by a ghost,” Molly stated as they walked past a long line of sheds painted in pastel colours, lining the shingle below the promenade. She had read her great-uncle’s diaries and Sherlock had shown her the evidence file from Scotland Yard, told her about the recent shooting which had been the real end of Archie Gault. 

“Yes. And no, of course,” Sherlock replied.

“Why did Archie do it? Why torment him like that?”

“He was humiliated, disgraced.”

“How do you mean?”

“Think about the evening at the Borough Hotel,” Sherlock pictured the devastation, smelled the mingled damp and smoke. “Archie Gault holding court, the place packed with people, lively atmosphere. Then, a spark – Gault approaches and proceeds to attack an unknown young woman stood alone. Now, allowing for the fact that mid-century sensibilities meant more people would be willing to turn a blind eye to heavy-handedness against women, this went far beyond that. Yet, the only reactions come from the spurned lovers and only one of them reacts in a way which could cause a violent reaction in the rest of the crowd. Harry Sinclair pushes the local drunk, who falls and hits his head. If the bar staff were so vigilant as to immediately restrain Edward Hooper at the first sign of trouble, why did they not restrain Gault or Sinclair?”

“It was a set-up,” Molly realised.

“Of sorts. Several schemes running at once, orchestrated by Clay – it was and ever has been his style – rooms full of bodies, some to be exploited for wealth or favour, some to be exploited as pawns and decoys. Gault attacks Violet Hooper, Clay sees and sets in motion an ever ready, drop-of-a-hat, backup protocol. His thugs start a brawl, then clear the place out in moments. But what of the sister and brother? In the wrong place at the wrong time? In fact, I wonder at the significance of the Smallwood connection.”

“They knew my nanna worked for Lady Smallwood?”

“They would closely monitor any person of interest to them. I suspect John Clay instructed Gault to re-establish his relationship with Violet Hooper, in the hope of exploiting her links to the government and security services via her employers. But he messed that up spectacularly – I think he was surprised by her appearance that night, caught practically with his trousers down, drunk and over-confident and – I imagine – intimidated by her.”

“Intimidated?” Molly looked at him.

“He would not be the last to have his composure robbed by a someone who was more than a woman to him, more than a conquest…” Sherlock held her gaze. “I cannot and do not excuse his behaviour. But I believe I do know something of what it is like to have one’s intentions scattered to the wind. I think he panicked, resorted to what he knew best within the context he found himself – bravado, dominance, violence.”

Molly stopped and pulled a tissue from her pocket to wipe under her eyes. Sherlock paused with her. 

“Clay must have realised his protégé had ruined any chance of establishing a usable and reliable connection to the Smallwood family when he attacked Violet Hooper. Realised, in fact, that now he had assaulted a woman who was effectively under the protection of the British government. Where he might have sought to bargain with them, he must have decided to let them go and permanently sever the ties. He punishes Gault. Kills him – more than kills him – destroys his name and his reputation, makes him a loose end, closes his file. Demotes him from Archie Gault, right-hand-man and favourite, to some nobody with no connections. 

“They dress the spare body – possibly even our poor local colourful-character who had fallen foul of righteous fury – set up the scene, including several more individuals whom they needed to become barely identifiable skeletons. Then they set the fire themselves.”

“But, if they bothered to make the fatal trauma look like a result of the fire, surely they didn’t want to implicate Teddy. If they wanted to cut all ties with my nanna, why hound her brother?” Molly’s brow knitted.

“Gault didn’t pursue your uncle for revenge or to force a confession. He did it to exert his power, defy his master, and, ultimately, because he could. He enjoyed being dead…”

_No one ever bothers you…_

Sherlock looked at the ground. 

**_I did not enjoy it._ **

**_But I did exploit it._ **

****

**_The solitude came at a high price._ **

**_  
_** ”He made a good job of it, too,” Sherlock looked at Molly again as she spoke, feeling another pang of discomfort in his middle. “Getting into the flat, getting into Uncle Teddy’s office, interfering with his work – that awful stunt in the street full of witnesses…”

“Daylight robbery,” Sherlock quoted. “All it takes is a few willing participants.” He suppressed a shudder. “The seemingly impossible power of the well connected.”

“Like your brother,” Molly observed.

“Hmm,” Sherlock cast his gaze to the side, thinking. “Thankfully, some are willing to use it for good. Mostly.”

Molly took a shaking breath and blew it out, her eyes on the horizon over the sea. 

“Where are we meeting Alice, again?” she asked.

They had visited Molly’s friend that morning at her work – the morgue of Southend University Hospital. An oddly familiar location in which to stand side by side with Molly Hooper. Every once in a while, like a static shock – brief, subtle but impossible to ignore – Sherlock would find himself absolutely aware of Molly’s existence. Of her otherness, her separateness from him. Her whole, whole-hearted value. When it had happened to him earlier that day, he had stuttered in his response to something Alice had said. His brain never gave him time to indulge in moments such as these, and he recovered quickly, but not before he observed Molly smile at the ground. 

Sherlock smiled at her now. Reached out a hand and gently pushed a strand of her hair behind her ear, enjoyed the warmth of her skin, for just a moment.

“When she said she lived in Leigh-on-Sea, the ideal rendezvous came immediately to mind.”


	15. Leigh-on-Sea - 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick heads-up - an illness and its treatment are referred to in this chapter. I have drawn on personal experience and it was my intention to describe with empathy. However, I do apologise if any unintended errors are upsetting to anyone reading.

Leigh-on-Sea

An hour or so later.

Sherlock approached Molly, a cardboard tray holding three takeaway coffee cups in his hand. She was twisted around where she sat on the bench, looking behind her at the rather incredible sight which was the Grand Hotel. Herras fencing divided them from it, running in a perimeter around the site. The lawn and terrace had become one mass of seven foot-tall weeds, couch grass and crumbling stonework. The building beyond? Well, suffice to say it had seen better days. Every window was boarded up and had been for so long that these plywood defences were themselves falling into disrepair. Weeds as successful as those on the ground erupted from every chimney pot and barely a tile remained on the roof. Most of the letters were missing from the signage above the door. 

Sherlock had been very generous to this institution in his mind. 

“Don’t say I never take you anywhere nice,” he offered Molly’s coffee to her and she took it.

“Sherlock, I’m a girl who’s happy in a morgue.”

“Just my type,” he told her.

She hummed, smiling tightly, looking down at the cup in her lap. Sherlock felt the want to give her comfort, but, he admitted privately, he had yet to feel the confidence to do so. 

“Alice!” Molly spotted her friend when she looked up. When Alice reached them, Molly handed her drink back to Sherlock without preamble, and embraced her friend. When they parted, Molly introduced her to Sherlock, quickly taking her coffee back so he could shake her hand, then handing Alice hers. They sat. Sherlock waited, almost the duration of his coffee, for the reason for their meeting to be gotten around to. 

Alice withdrew a file from her bag, opened it and handed Sherlock a report.

**_Ah._ **

**_Our silent pathologist speaks at last._ **

****

**_What else might he have to tell us?_ ** ****

****

“I wasn’t going to show these to anyone. I hoped I wouldn’t have to show you. When you told me this morning Archie Gault only died last week, I realised what this must be.” 

Sherlock held his hand out to Alice. After a moment’s hesitation, she placed the entire file into it. 

“There are several… too many… different cases referred to in there. Every report and certificate is authentic and above board, but, presumably, contains false information. Just like that one,” she gestured to the original she had given to Sherlock, ostensibly detailing the post mortem of Gault.

“Goodness knows who the poor soul really was,” Alice looked saddened. 

“Oh don’t worry,” Sherlock said. “These stand-ins are rarely innocent themselves.”

Molly lifted her eyes to his face.

“And that makes it okay, does it?” this from Alice, who addressed her question to her coffee cup in her lap, so she did not see the look which passed between Sherlock and Molly as he met her eye.

**_That man, whoever he was, had to be got out of the way_ **

**_as soon as his usefulness ended._ **

****

**_Loose ends…_ **

****

**_Who makes that decision? Who has that right?_ **

**_Can the angels really lay claim to their title?_ **

“Why did you decide to make contact, Alice?” Sherlock asked.

“Because of Molly’s family – it was obvious something had happened to them, something involving a man who had been murdered. I thought she would want to know.”

“I did,” Molly said. “I do. You did the right thing…”

Molly gave a summary of what had taken place. As she did so, Sherlock felt that rising sense of unease. The oncoming of a problem to be solved which he could not see his way through clearly because he was standing too close. 

Alice’s breath shallowed, bit by bit. She took a tissue from her pocket and wiped her eyes, covered her mouth, Sherlock observed her regulating her breathing. 

**_Love… is a much more vicious motivator._ **

**** ****

Many, many things had changed since that day, but that fact had not. 

“What my grandad did…” Alice began, her voice shaking, “… he made it so a violent criminal could walk free and… torment your poor great-uncle. He broke up your family…” she paused, overcome by grief. Molly put her arm around her shoulders.

“What happened to him – Edward?” Alice looked desperately at Molly.

“We don’t know,” Molly admitted. There were tears gathering along her lower lashes. “My nanna never heard from him again, as far as we can tell.”

“Do you even know if he… survived?”

“No.”

“Oh God, what if it drove him to… what if he…” Sherlock stopped Alice by covering her hand with his and raising his other in front of her, gesturing for her to calm herself. 

“Do you take supplementary bisoprolol, Alice?”

She nodded. Molly’s eyes widened. Alice quickly reached into the inside pocket of her coat and brought out an blister pack. She quickly swallowed a small tablet. Sherlock caught Molly’s eye and they waited for Alice to recover herself.

“I never knew,” Molly said after a couple of minutes of quiet, disappointment in her voice.

Alice shook her head, took an experimentally deep breath. After blowing it out, she replied;

“I didn’t really tell anyone at uni. Flair-ups were so rare back then, there wasn’t really any need.”

“I wish you had told me. I’ll be scanning my memory for days now thinking of times I left you on your own when I shouldn’t have…” Molly brought her fingers to her forehead.

“See, that’s why. I didn’t want mollycoddling,” Alice smiled at her friend, causing Molly to laugh. Sherlock raised his eyebrows at Molly, pressing his lips together.

“Oh, shut up, Sherlock,” Molly said. 

Melancholy smothered Alice’s smile then. “I always suspected I didn’t know my grandad,” she said. “I didn’t realise the extent, though.”

“He loved your Mother, that much is clear,” Sherlock said. Molly and Alice looked at him. “Switzerland or America?”

Alice sighed. “America,” she said. “A specialist cardiologist in New York.”

“Experimental treatment has always been an expensive business. Out of the financial reach of a registrar, I would imagine.”

“Mm-hm,” Alice confirmed. “I can hardly say I wish he hadn’t done it, can I?” she shook her head, ruefully. “I probably wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t found the money to take my Mum abroad. The treatments I had, the medication, just weren’t around back then.”

“It obviously didn’t sit easy with him, Alice – or he wouldn’t have given you all this stuff. Confessed, in a way,” Molly pointed out. “I’m grateful he did. Because now we have…”

“The truth,” Sherlock spoke over Molly, hearing a rushing in his ears. He cleared his throat, giving Molly a quick but meaningful look, finding he needed to break that eye contact quickly so as not to burn up in the beam of hers.

“Alice,” he ploughed on. “May I take this file with me? I’d like to ensure I have fully understood the details. Please.”

Alice looked a little startled for a moment, but she agreed. 

“Did your grandfather bequeath you anything further?”

“No… no, I don’t think so. He must have just felt particularly bad about this one case, to have kept all the clippings and things, too – perhaps he knew your uncle, Molly, or your nan…”

“In fact, he witnessed Archie Gault attack Violet Hooper in the Borough Hotel,” Sherlock clarified. 

“What?” Molly was controlling her voice, but only just.

“Witness statement – Andrew Corrigan was having a drink and cleared out with it when the trouble began. Being a periphery member of the gang controlled by the Clay family, he was likely invited, or perhaps directly involved in a scheme being planned or enacted that night…”

“Sherlock.” He heard the warning.

“… or, of course, he might well have just been passing… but I would bet good money that he was affected by what he saw, seeing a young woman attacked. It had a lasting effect. Enough to make him dig for details, find out who she was, monitor what happened next, from a distance.”

“Oh, God,” Alice dissolved into fresh tears. 

Molly’s lips were a thin line.

“Let us get you a taxi, Alice,” Sherlock pulled his phone from his pocket. 

Sherlock opened the door of the second cab as Molly closed the door of the first, giving one final wave to her friend as the car pulled away. When she turned to him, he wished he could have ordered a teleporter instead – no mode of transport available to him at that moment could help him avoid what was coming.

As they each settled into the back seat, the middle one empty between them, Sherlock briefly considered filtering her – or pretending to. But then he reminded himself that passivity wasn’t going to cut it. Not now. Not with her. Not for him, either.

“What was that about?” Molly made an exasperated gesture to match her words.

“I was sparing her. We are sparing her.”

“You what? How was all that about my nan getting attacked and her grandad being involved sparing her, exactly?”

“I didn’t mean…” irritation was the external result of his turmoil. “I wasn’t thinking when I said that – you made me… lose focus, for a moment…”

“Me?”

“Yes, you! You were going to say the information she passed to us was evidence which could be used to bring about some sort of justice…”

“It is! It could be…”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I said – no.” The air between them crackled. “There is no justice to be found here.”

“How dare you? It’s not your…”

“Which do you think is worse, Molly – me, someone Alice Corrigan doesn’t know and probably thinks is an insensitive prick, upsetting her for a fleeting moment, or a good friend she cares for dearly hanging her Grandfather’s dirty laundry out for the world to see? I thought you were the expert in human nature.”

Sherlock’s words might have been sharp, but inside he felt anything but as he watched her expression change from anger to sorrow. 

“And I thought you were supposed to defend the people who need it most.”

Sherlock closed his eyes, turned away from her.

**_That’s what I’m trying to do._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has a long history of listening to Molly Hooper - especially when she gets angry! Will he this time...?
> 
> Thank you for reading! See you Sunday :)


	16. Frinton Beach - 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst, yes. Comfort, yes. 
> 
> Happy Sunday :)  
> Enjoy!

Frinton

A little while later.

_I just need a bit of space, Sherlock._

The flat was silent, the road outside quiet, the atmosphere peaceful. But Sherlock remained unsettled. He had moved from room to room in the hour since Molly had headed out, her coat and bag in hand, requesting, without spelling it out, that he not accompany or follow her. An hour of visually amassing a life story – more than one – by the process of careful observation. 

Would he ever assimilate Molly, entirely? Did she allow enough to be observed for him to achieve such a state of enlightenment? Did he possess the skill, if so?

Put simply: no. She was the greatest mystery and that fact that she was unsolvable was what kept him coming back. She was what he hadn’t understood, she was what he had hidden from, she was what he had devalued. She was love. 

He let his fingers trail down each pebble threaded onto the string which hung from the kitchen door frame. The top one was above his head, the bottom one by his knee. Each one rounded, smooth, naturally perfect in their minute differences. Some had several holes bored through, some just the one through which the string was laced, connecting it to the next. Dozens of sunny mornings and chilly afternoons, boiled sweets and companionship. 

Sherlock shrugged on his coat, picked up his scarf and headed out.

__________

Molly’s head was filled up with the crashing of waves and the wheeling of gulls. Sat on the pebbles, her eyes were closed and she was breathing in crystal ozone and salt spray, exhales lost to the wind. She raised a gloves hand to her face and wiped away tears, again. They’d started falling before she got to the bottom of the staircase and clearly hadn’t finished yet. 

If there was one thing about herself Molly was sure of, it was her pragmatism about death. Unfortunately, a clinical attitude didn’t make mourning any less painful, grief any less lasting. 

Her dad died not long after she had started work in London after university, his mother survived him, but only for a couple of years. There hadn’t been a day since when the loss of them, the fact of their shortened lives, hadn’t taken her breath away, however momentarily. 

Today, her grief was as fresh and raw as ever. It was as though she had gained and lost a relation, a dear friend, in the space of a few days; her great-uncle – Teddy – whom her nanna had adored as much as her son and his daughter. They should have been a family. They should have been allowed to be a family. Molly bent over her folded legs and hid her face in her hands, pain inside which was like a fire contained in a pressurised cell. 

_I don’t care who hears,_ she thought as she cried, dreadful sobs overtaking her. She wrapped her arms around herself, willing herself to feel her nanna sat by her side, or her dad stroking her hair…

_I don’t want to be alone._

A hand on her shoulder was followed quickly by another wrapped around her and she found herself pulled into an embrace, pressed against a warm, solid chest. Molly grabbed on to Sherlock, buried her face in the fabric of his coat and cried even harder. He held her tight. 

“I… I know it’s not okay,” the strain in his voice made Molly’s heart constrict and she moved her hands to his back, held him. “But I’m here.”

“Oh God,” she spluttered, squeezing her eyes tight closed against him. “When they can’t kill you, they’ll drive you away…”

His arms tightened around her, his cheek against her temple. 

“What do we do?” she pleaded with him. 

The tide was on its way in, the breakers must have reached the bank of shingle, the crash of it scouring the pebbles and overwhelming the senses of anyone in hearing distance. Molly forced a deep breath into her lungs. Sherlock laid his hand on her cheek, his fingers stroking into her hair.

“We do what we can.”

They moved up onto the promenade when the waves reached the rocks a couple of feet in front of them. Molly chose a bench and sat, Sherlock disappeared. He returned a few minutes later with two takeaway cups and handed one to her. Before he sat, he reached into his pocket and extracted a small brown paper bag. Without removing the bottle inside, he twisted off the lid and Molly lifted the top from her hot chocolate to let him pour a frankly obscene amount of something into it. She lifted the cup and took a sniff which made her eyes water.

“That must be about a quarter brandy, now,” she smiled at him as he topped up his own drink from the bottle.

“At least,” he replied. “My mum’s recipe. Sort of,” he took a sip, pulled a ‘so so’ kind of a face, his nose wrinkling. “This is as sweet as I wanted it as a child, but now I’m all grown up I’d happily swap for proper cocoa.”

“Your parents let you have brandy when you were little?” Molly scoffed.

“Let us? They practically encouraged it. Tot of whiskey in the baby bottle – neither I nor my brother have ever had trouble sleeping,” at this Molly laughed, feeling the knots in her middle release a little. “It’s what makes him an ideal candidate for asphyxiation in his sleep, a marching band playing ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ wouldn’t rouse him… oh, on second thoughts, perhaps the murder of one’s relatives is not an ideal topic of conversation at present.”

He looked sideways at her and Molly suppressed a giggle. “Don’t worry, I’ll be my usual ‘cheerful mortician’ self again before you know it.”

“Good.”

He gave her a smile, that familiar, intensity between them as he kept his eyes on hers. Like old times. Then, he leant towards her and touched those beautiful lips to hers, sending a thrill through her which was still new and of which she would never tire. 

They sat watching the sun descend towards the sea, the sky glowing brightly in its last few moments before darkness fell. When she tipped the last of her drink into her mouth, shuddering enough to make Sherlock chuckle beside her, she put down the cup and reached into her bag. She took out her notebook. It had a cherry-red leather cover, thick, creamy pages and a ribbon serving as a page marker. It was ridiculous. Far too posh for her. But then, so was the man who had bought it. One thing she was very pleased Smythson notebooks came with, was an envelope in the back cover – it had been a much better, safer, place to keep the letters in the last year. 

She showed the envelopes to Sherlock. One was to Edward Hooper, the address of the flat below, a stamp and 1961 postmark in the top corner. The other one had just her name written in the centre. 

“My nanna’s solicitor sent these to me with the deeds to the flat, after she’d gone,” Molly explained. “In the one to me, she asked me to keep hold of this one…” she indicated the one to her uncle, “… and to give it to Teddy if I ever met him. I feel terrible now for never putting more effort into looking him up. I might have found out about all this sooner. Too caught up with… everything. Life…”

“It’s been opened, though,” Sherlock said. “Recently.”

“How recently?”

“Very.”

Molly smiled, sadly. “Looks like there’s a lot I need to be forgiven for.”

“No, Molly,” Sherlock sounded so sure it took her aback, made her heart skip. “You just wanted to know.”

“Yes,” she looked down at the letters.

“Will you read them aloud?” he asked. “Please.”

Molly slipped the letter addressed to her uncle out of its envelope and took a deep breath.

“Dearest Teddy,

“I shall tell you all about how wonderful London is and what adventures Arthur has been on when we get home in a few days. I am too eager to tell you what has been discovered to waste any more lines before getting to it.

“He is not dead. Unbelievable, I know, but let me reassure you – he is not dead, he did not die that night. Of course I trust you will know instantly to whom I refer, I have been expressly forbidden to write his name or any real details here, in case the letter is intercepted (it’s all rather like being in an Agatha Christie, really!). 

“But, my darling Teddy, our nightmare will soon be over. Help is on the way, and again I assure you, within days it will all be finished and we will be able to go back to our lovely, quiet lives, free from his influence. Finally, I can move on and so can you.

“You did what you did to save me. If the truth had never been discovered, I would never have thought any less of you. I love you, so very much. You are the most wonderful brother and the best uncle our Arthur could ever wish for. But I can see how terribly this has affected you, and it is my desperate want to ease your suffering which drove me to ask for help. I hope you can forgive me for breaking our silence when you have endured it, along with great pain.

“I promise you, Teddy, when we are home at the weekend this whole affair will be at an end. You’ll see. In the meantime, stay at home, look after yourself – open that box of toffees we have had since Christmas! And we will have champagne with our fish supper on Saturday.

“Your loving sister,

“Violet

“P.S. Arthur asks ‘will you build his new Airfix model with him when we get home, please?’ (I have added the please – he grows more impetuous with each day!)” 

Molly refolded the letter. Sherlock held out his hand for it, examining it and the envelope closely. While he did so, she removed the other from its envelope.

“My lovely girl,” here, she was forced to take a breath, “Molly,

“By the time you read this, I hope you will be an old lady, with wrinkly stockings sticking out of your wellies. Hopefully, you will have realised having an ice-cream van was indeed your true calling! I’m just teasing, my love. Whatever you have done, whatever you are, I will be pleased as punch with you and so proud I could burst, as I always have been.

“I need you to hang on to this letter for me. I don’t feel as though I have told you enough about your Uncle Teddy. I couldn’t have possibly fit it all in if I had talked from morning until night every day you visited me. He was a fantastic person – your cleverness comes from him, and your scientific mind, I am sure of it. He was a happy man, with a beautiful smile and silly, dark curly hair which he hated from being little. Just like your dad. I was so pleased to see my colouring turn up in you. 

“Molly, your dad should not have had to leave you when he did. He was too young. Try as I might – and you know I will – I won’t be able to stay with you as long as we would both like. I am so sorry you will have so little family, so little of the love you deserve showered on you every day. I hope you will not lock away your beautiful heart, young lady. I hope you will be happy. 

“Now, I shall cease in my old lady ramblings. I have asked you to keep my letter safe, but I have one other purpose in writing to you. 

“I want to apologise. Sincerely and without reserve. To you, of course, because your life has been blighted by my mistakes even though you do not know. At least I hope not. To your dad, my boy, who grew into a wonderful man without those who should have been there for him. To my Teddy, though, perhaps I should apologise the most. I was so caught up in the whirlwind that was my busy and exotic working life, so keen to run away from the tedium and the uncomfortable things in my home life, that I wasn’t there for my brother. I let him down. Everything I did came too late. And I haven’t been able to tell him how sorry I am. So very, very sorry. So I am telling you.

“Whenever the heroine writes a letter like this – or, perhaps, the curmudgeonly but wise elder – in a novel, she leaves a word or two of wisdom for her beloved as a final thought. I have walked past this letter every few minutes for the last week waiting for inspiration to come. Suffice to say, I don’t feel I have much to offer. 

“But I will say this, Molly. You come from strong stock. Intentions might have gone awry, as is their want, but the great influencers in my life and therefore, I hope, yours, have overcome with grace every challenge in their path. And not because they were special or somehow gifted. But because they didn’t give up, and even when life went against them, they persevered. They worked, hard. But they did not forget to live.

“My darling, darling girl. I shall see you on the beach.

“Nanna Violet”

Molly wiped under her eyes, holding the letter out to Sherlock. But he held up his hand, gesturing for her to keep it, handing her back the first. Molly tucked them carefully away to give herself a moment. 

“Why was she apologising?” she wondered aloud.

“In her letter to her brother, she admits to confessing what Edward Hooper did not – presumably their, and his, involvement in the events at the Borough Hotel. Her employer, Lady Smallwood – mother of the current Lady Elizabeth Smallwood – was wife to Lord Smallwood, who was at that time involved in national security at the highest level, just as his daughter is today.”

Molly listened carefully as Sherlock continued.

“Violet Hooper also intimates that something will occur to expose Archie Gault’s deception and rid them of him. I imagine Lord Smallwood made some enquiries, and was able to discover that Archie Gault had survived and was now operating under an alias. Do you recall the newspaper clipping from Doctor Corrigan’s collection – “successful local casino closes suddenly?” What if that establishment was in fact, the new outpost of the Clay syndicate, under the management of Duncan Ross?”

Molly gasped. “They had it closed down.”

“Threatened to expose him, most likely. Unshakable proof remains an issue when it comes to pinning the Clay’s down, but they have been suppressed over the years, controlled as far as possible. I have had an occasional hand in that task myself.”

“Oh God… Teddy didn’t get the letter.”

“No. Having made his bargain with the ghost, he left the day before the letter arrived, just a few more before Archie Gault was shipped back to London, for good.”

Molly stood, walked a few paces away from Sherlock. Evening had fallen properly, now, the street-lights were lit along the seafront and they were quite alone under them. She felt a bubbling in her middle, the sadness she had felt overtaken by retreating in the face of the fury she felt on behalf of her family. 

“Well,” she said, turning back to Sherlock, who looked fleetingly startled, his pale features sharp in the light. “I have the proof, you have the experience, I say we take them on.”

A long silence followed this. Sherlock’s eyes flicked from side to side. Molly waited, crossed her arms over her chest. She never asked him for anything. Never. He owed her this – he had to help her find some closure for them.

“Don’t… let’s… think for a moment. What we have, in reality…” he began, “…doesn’t actually amount to much.”

“It’s evidence.”

“Not strong evidence. Not without testimony.” 

“Alice can testify, so can I. So can you.”

Sherlock looked as if he was about to scoff, a smile hovered and was quickly subdued. He arranged his features to what he thought was calm understanding. Molly felt her fury redouble… 

Sherlock forced himself to stay calm, although he was feeling anything but. If he didn’t handle this well, he did not doubt for one second that she would undertake her mission alone. That was the last thing he wanted. 

“At best, we represent reasonably damning character witnesses for a dead-man on behalf of a prosecuting case which is not being brought.” 

Molly shook her head, a hardness in her features. “It’s not fair. It’s not justice.” 

“Justice is rare.”

“Don’t you care?” she scolded him.

“Of course I care,” he told her. “I care about exposing you and your friend to the wrath of the Clays – you’ve seen what they are capable of! It is my fondest wish to bring them down, but this is not the moment, and I will not see your name - or your life - jeopardised for nothing.” 

“It’s not right,” her voice shook with bubbling resentment. 

“No.”

“A woman was abandoned and abused and then had her brother driven from her life by a criminal and a madman. They were innocent, and their lives were… devastated by him. And he walked away,” Molly swiped her hand to the side in frustration as she spoke.

“For a while,” Sherlock said.

“What?” she whipped her head back to look at him.

“He was killed, don’t forget, in cold blood, by his own family.”

“Oh, and that makes up for the cushty life he lead before that, does it?”

“No, of course not,” Sherlock felt a prickling discomfort, fought the urge to shrink back. 

“What about Violet? Think of everything she lost, everything she didn’t get to have.”

“She had a family, Molly – a son and, in turn, a granddaughter whom she adored and who gave her the most profound gift of all.”

“What gift?”

“A voice!” Sherlock pushed his over hers for the first time. Watching her eyes soften, brim-full, and realising his own unintended irony, he lowered it again. “You have given her a voice - placed her, and her heart, in the dead centre of a story in which she might well have otherwise been forgotten.”

Molly closed her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks as she dropped her chin towards her chest. Sherlock stood and took her hand in his, waited for her. She looked up at him through wet lashes, her nose wrinkling, hinting at a smile. “The dead centre?”

“Chosen words, Molly,” he brushed away tears from her face, laying his palm to her cheek long enough for her to turn into it and press her lips to his skin. “You, everything you are, everything that is you, is your memory of that brilliant woman and her son, and the man who loved them both so much, he was prepared to sacrifice his time with them for their safety.” 

Molly looked at him, bored into him, and his mind supplied him with every instance she had ever looked at him this way in a blinding race of imagery. He almost recoiled with the strength of the twisting sensation in his middle. As he watched, she did what she always did, and Sherlock loved her just that little bit more. She put the power which was uniquely hers to one side, and returned her mind – her focus - to someone else. 

“But what about him?” she asked, her breath shallowing. “What about Teddy? It affected him so badly – made him ill…”

“He was poisoned,” Sherlock clarified.

“What?”

“He was the only tea drinker in his office, I imagine Gault had the leaves drugged. Serving the dual purpose of further discrediting Edward Hopper professionally and convincing him the visions he was experiencing of a dead man in the streets were real.”

“That’s… that’s horrible… beyond cruel,” Molly’s hand went to her mouth and her gaze to the middle distance, her eyes wide with shock and anguish. Sherlock watched as she shook her head.

“What if he never knew the truth, Sherlock?” Molly clutched his hand in hers, pleading with him, making him feel instantly utterly helpless. “What if he never… forgave himself?” her voice became brittle. “What if… what if he… died thinking he was at fault?”

Sherlock pulled her to him as tears overtook her again. He felt her terrible anguish, her anger which arose a fierceness in his own breast, gave him a desperate energy he _had_ to use. 

He also felt her grief. 

**_Blame… fault…_ **

****

**_Do not think - for one second - that I am one of them…_ **

****

**_The truth is rarely pure and never simple…_ **

****

_It was her choice. No one made her do it…_

****

****

**_This is not about me!_ **

**_… but Molly sees me in everything… I haunt her…_ **

****

Sherlock squeezed his eyes closed.

“We have to do something for him,” Molly said against his shoulder. 

“We will,” he laid his hand on the back of her head, rocked them both.

**_But I will not risk losing you in the process._ **

**_My unworthy heart aside, what kind of gratitude would that show to_ **

**_Violet and Edward? To Arthur?_ **

**_None._ **

****

**_No. We will resolve it._ **


	17. London - 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with it, thank you for getting your heads around it and/or just enjoying the ride! This fandom is flippin' brilliant :)
> 
> So, what's to be done, Sherlock..?

London

Two days later.

The box of clippings and photographs sat on the kitchen worktop. Alice’s second bequest, the file of records lay on top of that. And on top of that, the police file Sherlock had borrowed from Lestrade. The air hung heavy with words spoken in frustration, persuasion, desperation, resignation. 

Molly sat with her feet up under her, curled deep into the armchair with a cushion across her front like a shield. She stared at the box and the files.

Sherlock sat opposite her. His legs crossed at the knees, fingers together, elbows rested on the arms of the chair. He stared at the box and the files. 

Toby watched them from the rug, ignoring these items entirely, his tail flicking at the end, side to side. His eyes moved from Molly to Sherlock and back with equal unease. He scarpered with a mew of disgruntlement when Sherlock suddenly stood.

“What are you doing?” Molly asked him as he picked up his coat and swung it on.

“Making a decision,” he replied. He opened the box and dumped the folders inside, closing it again and picking it up. He looked at Molly, held her gaze steadily. Reassured her and implored her. Deferred to her.

“Okay,” she said after a deep breath. “Yes.”

He nodded once, lowered his gaze.

**_One door closes. Another opens._ **

“Where are you going?” Molly asked.

“To see a man about a fire.” 

__________

The heavy door swung closed behind him, the sound echoing around the space he now stood in. All white walls and stainless-steel. Reinforced glass, clipboards and electronic control panels. A man in spotless green overalls turned to him, sliding a pencil behind his ear, looking Sherlock over with the tip of his tongue between yellowed incisors. He raised his eyebrows by the tiniest amount.

“Some would say it was a shame,” Sherlock said.

“What’s that then?” a deep, thick east-end accent.

“Sanitisation,” Sherlock clarified. “Health and Safety. Where, I ask you, is the fun in taking highly sensitive documents to be incinerated in a facility which could be just about any manner of clinical institution. What, no cloying scent of smoke to stick to the back of the throat? No pervasive heat? No soot ingrained in the lines upon the face of the aged and careworn stoker? How very dull.”

“Oi, less of the ‘aged’,” the man smiled, pointing a stubby finger at Sherlock. “You’re no spring chicken yourself, Mr Holmes.”

“You must admit, this place… it lacks something,” Sherlock persisted.

“Less romantic.”

“Less poetic. But then, that is so often the case. Hardly anything bears the mark of intelligence, complexity of thought.”

“Art is liable to many forms.”

“Art?” Sherlock’s voice rang around the room. “No. Daylight robbery isn’t art. Corruption isn’t art. It’s barely childish daubing – painting by numbers at best. Paying someone to cover your tracks rather than do the work with any finesse? Just about as boring as it gets.”

The man rested his knuckles on the surface in front of him. “Gets the job done, mind.”

“Hmm,” Sherlock reluctantly concurred. “Speaking of which…”

He placed the box on the counter between them. 

“Care to take a look,” Sherlock offered, stepping back.

“Confidentiality, Sir. More than my job’s worth, Sir,” this came with a smirk.

“Very good. Help yourself.”

It took some minutes for his companion to absorb the information before him. To register the significance. When he was satisfied, he replaced the box lid carefully. Looked at Sherlock. Gave a nod, which Sherlock returned, followed by a raising of his own brow, this time. The man’s lips pursed, but he turned and retrieved a set of fire gloves and a hood. He opened a thick steel door at the far end of the room using a heavy lever. Sherlock felt the heat from where he stood. He watched the box and its contents from the moment it left the surface before him until the one in which it vanished inside the furnace. Once the door was firmly resealed and his protective equipment stowed, the man returned to Sherlock.

“Will that be all?” he enquired.

“Yes,” Sherlock locked their gazes. “That _is_ all.”

He lingered a moment before making to leave. At the door, he turned.

“Oh, there is one more thing,” he said. “Corrigan and Hooper would never have come for any of you. It is not in their nature. But understand this. If I catch so much as a hint, the merest whisper, within a hundred miles of either of them or their loved ones, any vague acquaintance or location connected to them by the most seemingly tenuous of links… I will come for you. And you know, very well, what is in my nature.”

A minute bobbing of an Adams apple. A sheen of sweat. A nod. Sherlock turned his back and was gone. 


	18. Whitehall - 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is your impending cliff-hanger warning... ; )

_Whitehall_

_An hour later._

_A suit of some calibre was walking towards him down the long hall. As light a shade of grey as his own was dark, the example before him was constructed of napped wool flannel, the jacket rakishly sporty with padded shoulders. The pleated trousers sat high on the waist, belted, giving a slimming effect, the turned-up cuffs sitting high above the polished, brown leather lace-ups. Off-white shirt, subtly striped tie with some kind of motif which was too delicate to perceive from this distance, but would soon reveal itself. A dark felt fedora sat upon the head of the figure, the light cast from above inhibited by the brim, robing the face in shadow._

_The man came to a stop, some five paces ahead._

_"_ _I can’t work with a man who wears a hat in the office. I feel he is about to leave momentarily,” Holmes addressed the man, sliding his hands inside the open front of the Crombie and into the pockets of his suit trousers._

_“Well, now we may add inconsolable sartorial differences to the list.”_

_Holmes smiled. “Billy Wilder would be appalled. The novelty tie was hardly his style.”_

_"_ _And how would Mr Devore feel about your burying of his master work beneath the overcoat of choice of a dour British monarch?”_

_"_ _I don’t much care.”_

_"_ _No. Well, he always was more of a showman than a tailor, so I have no doubt he would applaud your irreverence as much as your predilection for the dramatic.”_

_"_ _You’d know all about that, brother dear.”_

_Mycroft Holmes lifted the fedora from his head by the peak, placing it over his heart, kicking out a booted foot and landing it upon the point of the toe, his leg crossed over the other, weight rested on the umbrella in his hand like a dancer’s prop._

_“Elegance, brother mine. It requires a level of understatement you could never hope to emulate…”_

“Umbrellas!”

Sherlock pointed at Mycroft’s tie, taking a step towards him. “You have umbrellas on your tie, Mycroft. What the hell would you know about elegance?”

Mycroft narrowed his eyes at Sherlock, flicked them down and back up, briefly over his own shoulder. Sherlock held his gaze when he met it again, matched and subtly exaggerated Mycroft’s look of bemusement, enjoyed the internal workings showing on his brother’s face. 

“To what, dare I ask, do I owe the pleasure of that odd little exchange?”

Sherlock eyed him. “I need some information. Answers.”

“It’s never just a cup of tea and a catch-up, with you, is it?” Mycroft let out a small sigh at the end of this statement, gesturing for Sherlock to go ahead of him through the door to his office, by which they were standing.

“No not you – must you always be so self-centred?”

Mycroft’s look of incredulity almost made Sherlock laugh out loud.

“I’m here to see Lady Smallwood.”

__________

“A singularly exceptional woman; intelligent, perceptive, dedicated, loyal, warm, feeling. But with very unfortunate taste in men.”

Lady Smallwood made eye contact with Sherlock over the desk. He raised an eyebrow by the merest fraction. 

The room in which they sat was expensively furnished, with a subdued atmosphere created by warm, low lighting, wood fire, mahogany panelling and the hushed voices of soft-shoed staff. Secrecy hung in the air. Intelligence. Sherlock took a breath before speaking. 

“Your Mother, Lady Veronica Smallwood, took on Violet Hooper as personal assistant and governess in favour of a number of recently trained and childless candidates. Why? To protect her? Your father occupied the position in which you now sit, did he not?”

“Yes.”

“He knew of the danger posed to Ms Hooper by her estranged fiancé, then.”

“My mother did not know Archie Gault was the father of Violet’s child until after his supposed death, some time into her employment.”

“Why treat her with such generosity, then? At a time when women in her position were, at best, side-lined by society or, at worst, vilified – why associate the good name of Smallwood with such scandal?”

Lady Elizabeth Smallwood prevented herself rolling her eyes. She brought her hands together on top of the stack of files on her desk in front of her. 

“Violet Hooper was a brilliant assistant and ideal governess, her skills spoke for themselves and my mother liked her instantly upon meeting her, as did I. Her work was faultless, her discretion assured. She treated me like her own daughter. She was a member of our family. Arthur was a bonus, Mr Holmes. Not a burden or a compromise. Violet was not a good employee despite her being a mother, she was simply the only person fit for the job.”

Sherlock smiled.

“Come now, Mr Holmes, you hardly require a lesson in the validity and capability of women. You are surrounded, are you not?”

“I simply wished to broaden my already vast understanding.”

“And yet, I suspect that is not the only reason for your coming to see me today?”

“You have the best biscuits, I was hoping if I stayed long enough…”

Lady Smallwood smiled. She opened the topmost file. “I had wondered how long it might be after Archie Gault, alias Duncan Ross, was killed, that you would knock on my door.”

She flicked through the pages contained in the folder. Sherlock read what he could, scanned images, his eyes drawn out of irrepressible habit. 

“So you believe as I do,” Sherlock said. “That John Clay expected Doctor Andrew Corrigan to leak information to his daughter…” A photograph of Alice was revealed as Lady Smallwood turned another page to which it was attached. “Of course, you have made the next link...”

The file was re-closed. Sherlock read the label upside down, though he didn’t need to.

**_Molly Hooper_ ** ****

****

“You also suspect, we are not alone in having done so,” Lady Smallwood looked at him intently.

“It is not a risk I am willing to take,” he confirmed.

The woman sitting across from him gave him a searching look. “Every family has skeletons, Mr Holmes, you of all people should know that. Doctor Corrigan’s closet was, apparently, full to bursting. Even Dr Hooper, it seems, cannot be protected by her own quiet brilliance from the stains of a murky history, blamelessness notwithstanding.”

“Quite,” Sherlock said. “So I have sought to strengthen her protection.”

“Might I enquire as to your methods?”

“Should I apologise now or afterwards?”

“Perhaps both.”

“I am very sorry.”

A sigh. “Go on.”

“The evidence bank comprising of the records kept by Doctor Corrigan, plus his collection of newspaper articles and such pertaining to the connection between Edward and Violet Hooper and Archie Gault, and finally the police file relating to The Borough Hotel fire in 1961…”

“All of which could contribute to the prosecution of active violent criminals and are the property of the British Government,” Lady Smallwood interrupted.

“Yes, yes,” Sherlock waved his hand. “I have, this very day, overseen their incineration.”

Another sigh.

_For Heaven’s sake, Sherlock!_

**_Whatever. Save it for when you see me in person._ **

**_And then I will tell you, to your face, to shut up._ **

****

“You realise you have committed a crime punishable by imprisonment?” Lady Smallwood asked him.

“When, today?”

She passed her hand over her eyes.

“Oh, yes – sorry again,” Sherlock added. 

Lady Smallwood sat back in her chair, seeming to search Sherlock’s face. She depressed a button on the underside of her desk without bothering to hide this action.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would put up with the credits rolling and hearing that music, a hundred times over, just when things were getting good, if it meant the show was back <3
> 
> Am I on my own?


	19. London - 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all :)
> 
> Sending love and thanks as always to everyone reading - hope you enjoy this final part of the story. See you for the epilogue on Halloween.
> 
> Take care xx

London

A short while later.

Sherlock had gone from exile promising certain death to freedom in four minutes, which had been somewhat exasperating. The British government could U-turn on a sixpence. The week spent in prison (real and imagined) prior to that had been hugely inconvenient. Though the combination of these experiences, he would admit, had been enlightening, in many ways. 

Leaving Molly Hooper, though…

**_The composure in her voice on the telephone,_ **

**_he could still hear the tears…_ **

****

**_Her promise to still be there…_ **

Sherlock’s heart had not known it’s own cracks, at that time. He’d walked away from her – he’d had no choice, not after the one he made outside Appledore – settling the inner turmoil provoked by thoughts of her that he did not know how to name, by reassuring himself that she was safe. Moriarty was gone. Magnussen was gone. He had kept her safe from both, never given her away, avoided the close calls. 

**_Talk about your whole world turning on one word, sis._ ** ****

****

‘England’. Moriarty – the only possible explanation for Mycroft’s choice of phraseology. Sherlock had had to solve it, by any means, had to see it through to the end. Even though, to his shame, he could never have conceived of what that would mean. 

No matter what cost, he had to protect them. He had to protect her. Because Moriarty would know, now, would be able to see her from beyond the grave.

Sherlock was willing to walk away, be led away, any time, under any circumstances, for any length of time, if that would ensure Molly’s safety. He would take his shattered heart with him and cradle it as the reconciled old friend it was, now. She was and ever would be, the one who mattered. 

Sherlock turned to Lady Smallwood, who was stood at his side. Having summoned an assistant to fetch her coat and postpone her remaining engagements for the day, she had asked him to walk with her. Dusk was falling heavy over London, the cloud-laden sky saturated with red, purple, indigo, darkness chasing the sunset on. Before them, the river, that soup of activity and misadventure, flowed quietly on.

“How does one know when it’s time to stop, do you think?” Lady Smallwood asked him.

“Is it ever possible to stop?” Sherlock asked his own question in response. “The work doesn’t.”

“Your brother would say I was getting soft. That I cared too much.”

“He is not in a position to cast that particular stone.”

Lady Smallwood looked at him. He watched a melancholy look cloud her features, though exactly of what or whom she was thinking he could not be absolutely sure. 

“I was devastated when Violet died. I realise now I had buried my sorrow in the years between her Arthur’s passing and her own. I offered my condolences at the time, of course, offered to help in whatever way I could, though of course Violet would not let me – she wouldn’t accept my mother purchasing their little flat in Frinton as a birthday gift. Not until a trust agreement had been arranged ensuring it would pass to her grand-daughter,” she smiled, wistfully. Sherlock waited.

“My working life has made me cold, Mr Holmes…”

“No,” he stated.

“I am not ashamed of it,” she continued, holding up her hand to him. “I have been everything my father was and more, to my country. I have done the best I could by my family. When all is said and done, we would do anything for them, wouldn’t we?”

“Yes. Even hijack the machinery of the state,” Sherlock shot her a sly smile. 

“When necessary.” 

Lady Smallwood paused. She drew her coat closer around herself, adjusted her scarf. “At least tell me you made use of Clay’s henchman to destroy government property.”

“Of course. They got the message.”

“Hmm, I can imagine,” she pulled a pair of black leather gloves from her pocket and threaded each hand into them. “We can but hope, then, that Dr Hooper and her friend shall be safe. That this particular door is closed.”

“You know what they say about one door closing…” Sherlock considered the river. John would warn him, in no uncertain terms, to not push his luck, here. That having avoided the wrath of this woman and avoided prison – again – he should not even think of asking for more. But he wasn’t asking for himself.

“I’ve had quite enough of paperwork,” he said. “But I would still like to know. So would Molly Hooper. Although she would never be so bold…”

“No-one would, Sherlock.”

He looked at the ground. 

“Schmitt. Edward Schmitt,” Lady Smallwood said. “Do your research.”

And with one final knowing look, she walked away, leaving him stood alone but for his freedom and his purpose. 


	20. Brompton Cemetery - 2017

Brompton Cemetery

A few days later, on Halloween morning.

They were quite a way away from the rather grand, carved stone mausolea, in this part of the garden of rest. To their left and right, ahead and behind, were neat rows of modest headstones, some adorned, many not. 

“I have always hated those statues,” Sherlock had commented as they walked among the tombstones and elaborate sculptures of remembrance in the older part of the cemetery. “Angels should never be represented in cold, hard stone. That is not their essence, surely.” 

Molly looked at his face, the muscles of his cheek which was facing her were taut, tension in his jaw. He caught her looking at him, she did not turn away when he did. He smiled, quickly, shaking his head fractionally. Molly waited for the deflection, the joke…

“Little wonder they are inclined to fall.”

Molly smiled. She looped her arm through his and tucked herself into his side. 

“I’m not keen either,” she told him. “I prefer my angels warm, too.”

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, feeling the gentle scratch of the fabric of his coat. A fleeting image of it billowing around him, caught in the updraft, like the wings of a stricken bird trying to catch itself mid-descent, dashed across her memory and caused her stomach to drop. 

“And I like their feet firmly on the ground,” Molly lifted her eyes to find his. Out in the clear morning light, they were nearly colourless, a perfect reflection of the brightness around them. Ready to shift at any moment, as though they were made of the sky. Of course, only the people he let get close enough could observe that. All he ever did himself was _see_ it, briefly, in the mirror, and he didn’t look too often. _God_ , she loved him. For being everything she thought he was and not having the first clue. 

“And here was I, enjoying the view from my pedestal,” Sherlock said, and Molly laughed as his expression arranged to disgruntlement. “I am beginning to regret my decision to make all your dreams come tr –“

She swiped at him, the back of her hand connecting with his chest reasonably strongly. She laughed when his face betrayed how it had stung, before resolving into that wide, genuine smile which warmed his whole being. 

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself it’s all your doing, mate.”

His gloved hand was in hers now, as Molly looked down at the memorial stone in front of them. Their names looked as fresh as they day they were carved. Arthur Edward Hooper above, Violet Mary Hooper below. Dates with too few years between them. They stood quietly, just looking and being together, for a little while. 

Molly didn’t like leaving things by graves. Honestly, she could extract a box of eggs from alongside a foot in the fridge, poke around in the innards of a corpse, never feel any sadness or worries about the loneliness of a body left in the morgue. Bodies were bodies. Transport, Sherlock called them, although of course he referred to a means of carting a brain around. Or he had. Molly felt similar, but it was a spirit, a heart which was more than a weighty crimson mass, which she thought of as having departed the shell after death. What use, then, were statues, soft toys or even flowers, to what lay below the grass? Spirits filled the air, became everything; they weren’t confined to a posh cemetery in Chelsea, hovering around checking whether the petrol station price sticker had been removed. 

Molly felt a bubbling rising from her middle. She pressed her lips together. She almost raised her hand to cover her mouth, pictured herself pretending, badly, to find herself momentarily overcome. 

“There she is,” Sherlock squeezed her hand. 

Molly took a deep breath as the brief bout of giggles subsided. She put her hand into her coat pocket, feeling the smoothness of the envelope through her woollen glove. How quickly her emotions could turn from cheeriness to almost-tears never failed to shock her. When her thoughts returned to what they had found out, it was the inconclusiveness, the pieces of the puzzle all gathered together but not yet in place, that brought her instantly to gloom. It was just so bloody frustrating. Now she was sounding like Sherlock, she though ruefully, feeling the man himself release her hand and turn around, moving away. Molly looked at the sky, willing tears back inside the ducts. 

“Molly,” Sherlock’s voice was low and gentle behind her. She turned to him.

He was facing a gravestone in the next row to where she was. The names upon this one looked directly at those of her dad and nanna. It was similar to theirs too; simple, unfussy, and it also bore two inscriptions. Molly took the few steps needed to stand beside Sherlock. She squinted to read the carving. As she did, her stomach flipped over, just a little, a bit like it sometimes did when she almost recalled something, or like she was getting close to the answer at work.

“Edward Schmitt,” she read. “Frederick Schmitt. Who are they, Sherlock?”

“You don’t recall?”

“Erm… there’s something familiar about Schmitt…” Molly scanned her memories of training, her early jobs, something about that was ringing a very distant bell.

“Prosthetics,” Sherlock prompted, and Molly remembered.

“Yes, I attended a lecture given by Edward Schmitt at uni – he was an American prosthetic engineer. He was lovely, really funny. So clever,” she smiled, fondly, picturing the old man with his knitted tank top and thick-framed glasses, thinning but wildly curly hair – like a mad scientist. It had stuck with Molly that every example he gave in the talk of an eminent scientist or doctor in his field, was a woman. She’d loved that.

“Lovely, funny, clever. Runs in the family,” Sherlock looked at her and she at him, her brow knitting for a fraction of a second before she grasped his meaning. When she did, she whipped her head back to the headstone, feeling her heart rate spike.

“That was him? This is my great-uncle Teddy?”

“And his partner - husband in all but law.”

Molly eyes widened, amazed. She smiled, but she felt it crumpling quickly. Sherlock passed her a hanky, his hand between her shoulder blades. She let his voice wrap around her, letting him answer the questions she couldn’t voice.

“I, like your grandmother, found the trail of Edward Hooper ran instantly cold, on this side of the Atlantic. Short of searching the rest of the world, Violet Hooper, as a civilian, was never likely to discover his whereabouts. Which, of course, was his intention, believing he was taking the malevolent spirit which had haunted both him and his sister, to the other side of the planet with him. I have discovered, though, with the assistance of Elizabeth Smallwood, that Edward made the crossing to America, settling in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1966. He took up a position at the university there some years afterward, continued his work with great success, as you know. It seems he met Frederick upon arriving in the country, he and Edwards of varying surnames are registered as room-mates at several locations. By the time he became a professor, he had taken his last name. Accounts of his character I have encountered which are as glowing as the one you just gave, occasionally mention his gentleman friend and, in more recent years, his ‘other half’. I am sorry, Molly, that I cannot reassure you that he found himself free of the burden of what happened at any point in his life, but I do believe I can say with surety that he was happy, and loved.”

“Oh, Sherlock,” Molly leant into him, felt his hand move from her back to her head, cradling it against him. 

“Forgive me, Molly,” his voice had a raggedness about it, all of a sudden. Molly pulled away to look at him.

“What on earth for – I should be thanking you.”

“I need to know you understand why I had to destroy any palpable links between your family and the people who ruined their lives.”

His eyes were searching hers, darkened along with the clouding sky, now. He held her upper arms in his hands, almost too tightly. 

“I do,” she said. “I know why.”

“But you hate me for it,” the dejection in his voice made Molly’s chest tighten and she grasped his forearms in return.

“No,” she said. “When has being furious with you ever made me hate you?”

His lips thinned, his hold on her arms softened and he looked at the grass between their feet. 

“And besides, that man didn’t ruin my nanna’s life, or Dad’s. Looks like he didn’t even manage to ruin Teddy’s,” Molly lowered herself to catch Sherlock’s eye, bring him back up. “I’ll help you, when the day comes to take the Clay’s on and, believe me, I can hold on to how pissed off I am for a very, very long time. But until then, I’m glad you chose to protect Alice Corrigan.”

“You, Molly.”

She smiled. His utter determination to minimise, in his own mind, the reach of the shelter provided by those wings. How could someone with such apparently gigantic faith in his own ability fail to recognise the best of it? He’d always been her idiot, at least now she could reach him in every way. 

His lips warmed quickly against hers. Neither of them would have batted an eyelid at doing what they were doing where they were doing it (although Molly did feel a slight blush on behalf of the living who might be looking on). But she needed to settle the leftover niggling, so she pulled away again, leaving her eyes closed until their lips had completely parted and the skittering in her belly had calmed. 

He was looking at her when she did open her eyes, a softness around his, the faintest flush over those blimmin’ cheekbones. She looked down while she pulled the letter her nanna had written for her uncle from her pocket. She lifted it to let Sherlock see. He let go of her, clasped his hands behind him, straightening and taking half a step back, a corner of his mouth lifting just a fraction. Then he looked from her to the headstone bearing the names of Edward and his Frederick. Molly took a steadying breath, turning herself to face the headstone and removing the letter form its envelope, opening it up. 

She didn’t believe in leaving things behind. She believed in keeping them close. 

Then, Molly began to read, making her voice carry clear and true across the air, across the distance, across the decades. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!”
> 
> Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
> 
> xx


	21. London

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone!
> 
> In case you haven't seen, I managed to miss out a chapter half way through - thankfully not leaving a gaping plot hole, but if you've been reading along before the 31st Oct you might like to have a look at chapter 14. I gave myself the fright of my life this morning when I realised! How apt. 
> 
> Huge thanks for reading, for the kudos and comments. One last extra special thanks to OhAine - writing and sharing this story has been a complete joy, a highlight of 2020 for sure, and that's largely down to you. Lots of love <3

_London_

_Saturday 31st, 1961_

_A keen breeze blew along the Thames, taking up the skirt hems and threatening the hats of day visitors who lined the embankments. New gloves held tightly to railings as well as to headscarves. Small children in bobble hats, neat duffle coats and shoes shined for the occasion, pointed eagerly as images from the picture books appeared before their eyes; large as life and visitable. A pleasure boat was boarding, tooting its comical little whistle. A walking tour passed them, distinguishable from any other crowd of people clutching maps and expressions of mixed interest and confusion, by the lady ahead of them all by several long strides, her umbrella raised despite the dry air, in whose knowledgeable wake the rest trailed._

_Sherlock Holmes had walked this stretch of the river, between Chelsea Embankment and Whitehall Gardens, on more occasions that he would bother counting. To know the city as he did required regular legwork, and each and every street must be included. But on days such as this, when he felt the rare satiation which came from an agreeable solution to a problem combined with a short and well-defined stretch of free time plus the presence of a friend, he found his feet drew him almost without exception, to the riverside. Here, the air and his thoughts flew more freely, his lungs found their work easier, he enjoyed some communion with the sky._

_Would he ever grow used to it, he wondered, this feeling? Of course, speaking purely of the physical, surely it would require no longer than a few moments of any man’s time and attention to catalogue the sensation of a hand smaller than his own slid between his body and his upper arm. Delicate (but confident) fingers spanning and lightly grasping the muscle there, which was taut with the action of holding his forearm about his solar plexus. A few seconds further would allow his body ample time to match the pace and, if necessary, the gait of the person closely at his side, so that their progress would not be impeded by their proximity. Sherlock Holmes was, of course, not just any man, so these simplistic elements of the experience had been reconciled in a heartbeat._

_What occupied his mind, though, was how, and indeed why, the very ordinary act of her taking his arm as she walked by his side – without any great purpose, and not because he insisted – overwhelmed his senses as though he had only recently discovered them and Molly Hooper was the only person with the answers._

_He looked at her. Unshod, she stood 9 inches shorter than him. In this instance, her black court shoes afforded her an inch and a quarter advantage, so that her hair, half of which was drawn into a velvet-covered clip at the back of her head, where it fell to her shoulder blades with the remainder, was level with his mouth. His nostrils were greeted with the scent of it; the citrus of the liquid shampoo she used currently the most prominent feature rather than the familiar mixture of aromas associated with her workplace. Underpinned by a warmth which could also be chemically described, even as far as the reaction it caused to take place low in his gut, it could be explained. Yet it was a mystery to him. As was the very great urge – nay, need – to breach the space in between them and press his lips to it._

_He did so. He trusted intuition, implicitly, so he would allow it to govern his actions. When it came to this singularly extraordinary woman, his reason was forced to take a backseat._

_Molly looked up at him. Smiled, with her lips pressed together as though she had to contain herself, as though there was a great deal more behind this second simple gesture than it gave away. He returned it with ease, found his left hand compelled to cover hers upon his arm for a moment – his whole body, entire being, wishing to be closer to her._

**_Incredible._ **

_“Thank you for this morning,” she said, being too kind, as was her want._

_"There is no_ _need to thank me,” he told her. “It was you who did what was required.”_

_“I needed your help,” Molly insisted. He waited for her to continue, she seemed initially as if she might. But then her flecked hazel eyes clouded, her expression followed, and Holmes felt the weight of her grief as it settled upon her once again. Healing, he knew, was a slow, drawn-out process, especially when one was as true to one’s emotions as Molly Hooper. He offered her what he could._

_“You shall always have it, Molly.”_

_At his words, she appeared to rally. Her back straightened and she let out a breath which allowed her shoulders to relax. She looked up at him again, and her beauty struck him, right to his very centre._

**_However has this angel come to be at my side?_ **

****

_The notion and the swirling emotion in his system prevented him making any further comment._

_Molly Hooper checked her wristwatch as they passed Hungerford Bridge, the rattling of carriage wheels upon rails filling the air as a train crossed the river. She realised, as Sherlock copied her motion beside her, that she had acquired this habit from him. Although she knew that no matter how often she repeated it, she would not build a mental time-table of every train service in the capital!_

_She looked across the river as the train reached the far side. The Royal Festival Hall, with its curved roofline, dominated the view. She recalled fondly the few recitals she had attended there with him, hoped another case or occasion of some sort would motivate him to invite her again soon. Not that she wouldn’t invite him herself, for no good reason other than to enjoy the entertainment and the company, but she couldn’t deny the quiet but insistent thrill which came with being taken out by Sherlock Holmes._

_Eyes followed him, wherever he went. Tall, broad and lean, made even more so on all counts by his dark, modern, well-fitting suits and long overcoat. Looks swept from the polished leather shoes all the way up, past the upturned collar to the impossibly fine cheekbones and black curls. Arresting and perfect, to behold._

_Beside him, her brown suede swing-jacket covering a blouse and embroidered cardigan, with black trousers and sensible-height heels on sensible-coloured shoes, Molly could have felt plain. Out of place, even. But no skirt-suit or go-go boot would ever make it as far as Sherlock’s heart, and being there came with no dress code. Molly was free to be herself, with him, and rightly so. Parading him, though, was fun._

_Molly smiled to herself, as she considered the space on the other side of the river beside the hall._

_“What was the outcome of the meeting, about the theatre?” she enquired._

_Sherlock rolled his eyes luxuriously in response, a groan leaving his lips. Molly needn’t even mention his brother’s name and Sherlock’s exasperation was out in full force._

_“The London County Council have upped their offer of waiving rent on the site,” he stopped, their arms unlinking, and he gestured to the swathe of barren land Molly had been looking at. “They are now offering to pay half of the construction costs of the building – a level of concession which is practically unheard of in the case of town planning. But still, the government, in its unending wisdom, do not believe the country is in need of a National Theatre. Imbeciles.”_

_Molly chuckled, had to stop herself laughing outright when his nose wrinkled at her in annoyance._

_“Don’t bother telling me off,” she jumped in ahead of him. “I don’t find it funny, I’m just so surprised by how much it matters to you.”_

_Sherlock rolled his shoulders fractionally, stiffened his frame._

_“I was merely answering your question.”_

_Molly pushed herself onto her toes and planted a kiss on his cheek, leaving the faintest trace of her lipstick there, which she wiped away with her thumb as his face softened._

_“It does matter to you, and I love that,” she informed him. “What’s to be done?”_

_“Hmm,” Sherlock eyed her, she felt her stomach dip. “Well, my brother assures me he will argue the case for a reconsideration of the proposed building – he hopes, as I do, that the success of the new arts centre on the adjacent land, when it comes to fruition, will bolster the Treasury’s confidence. The arts remain a tricky customer, to the powers that be.”_

_“How so?” Molly was a medic, a scientist. Away from work, she loved culture and entertainment as much as anyone, but she had to admit she rarely thought of it as an industry, with similar logistical and political wrangling as her own. She had quite enough on her mind, being one of the few female doctors in her hospital, surrounded by men who would rather she progressed no further than Ward Sister, and with trying to alter that._

_“Because,” Sherlock began, “Mr Macmillan could offer a blank cheque to every arts organisation from Bournemouth to Inverness, and still no performing artist, no crew member, no producer, no front-of-house personnel, no scenic designer, no stage sweeper anywhere in the land will ever vote for his party. After all, the defining ideal of liberalism is freedom of expression. The Right will never enamour an artist.”_

_Molly’s breath left her in a huff, her heart rate was elevating. If they put this man in front of a crowd, he could change the world. She listened._

_“So the facilitation of creatives and the validation that would bring is side-lined at every opportunity. Repression remains a defining characteristic of nationalism. But, there is a plan afoot…”_

_“Yes?”_

_“A number of sympathetic, odiously rich characters desperate to be divested of their cash, are to invest in a series of staging’s of George Bernard Shaw’s The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, across the country. The attendance of which by Members of Parliament Mycroft will make as mandatory as legally possible.”_

_“Okay…” Molly wished she could follow._

_“The play’s the thing,” Sherlock winked at her. She felt no clearer in her understanding, but she did at least catch the reference in his last words, and resolved to conduct her own research… Molly let out a short burst of a laugh, then, and shook her head._

_“Are you trying to recruit me?” she demanded of him, the liquid feeling stirring in her middle transferring through her look and into his expression, reflecting back to her and making her tingle from head to foot as his eyes bored into hers._

_“Do you wish to be recruited?” His voice was low, silken. Dangerous._

_"M_ _r Holmes,” she steadied her voice as best she could, filled it with prim. “I am not that sort of girl.”_

_“Oh, my dear Doctor Hooper,” he stepped towards her. “You are no sort of anything… you are unique…”_

_He dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers, his hands still joined at his back. Molly’s fingers clutched the strap of her handbag, forgetting for an instant as her senses were overpowered by the gentleness and power of the kiss, to put her hands on him. She would have – oh goodness, she would have – but he drew back before either of them could develop their brief connection into anything unseemly for the time of day._

_Before she had even opened her eyes, he said;_

_“Work calls.”_

_Molly cleared her throat. “Yes. I’d better get going.”_

**** ****

____________

**_On paper…_ **

****

**_On paper…_ **

****

**_Simple enough, on paper…_ **

****

**_On paper, the solution is straightforward…_ **

**** ****

_Holmes allowed his mind to wander, on the matter of linguistics and metaphor. To wonder, perhaps. He was stood before a vast case of evidence files, in the basement of Scotland Yard, methodically removing each parcel of typed or printed evidence from the position it had likely resided in for the duration of living memory, and placing it into the box to his right. A casual observer might regard this paper trove, this inelegant library, this galaxy of data and see a thousand or more resolutions, neatly and satisfactorily ordered. That was not what Holmes saw. He saw a desperate attempt to corral the chaos of the world above and beyond where he was now standing. The grim reality of each story of which all that remained here was a manilla file of bleached pulp and ink, was a different beast entirely._

_Procedural memory. His dorsolateral striatum at work._

_It’s a bit menial, I’m afraid. Police work often is,_

**_Lestrade pushed his hands into his pockets,_ **

**_stood by his side and in front of a gigantic pile of neglected filing._ **

**_This was to be his first task on his first day._ **

**_If Mycroft was trying to put him off…_ **

****

_It’s not all charging round arresting crooks,_

**_The sergeant was only a few years his senior,_ **

**_He was clearly enjoying having someone new to order about,_ **

**_And (he thought) impress._ **

****

_Gets a bit boring. That brain of yours isn’t_

_going to get a lot of exercise today…_

**_Was he joking?_ **

**_Oh, no he wasn’t._ **

**_He genuinely believed that nonsense to be the truth._ **

**_And they put these people in charge of law and order?_** ****

****

_The thoughtless task, done automatically, subconsciously, the body governing itself in its work, giving the deeper reaches of the mind space to breath and experiment, resolve and discover. ‘Eureka moments’, ordinary people called them. That was because when they happen to these people, the event is as uncommon as a great, world-changing discovery. For Holmes, these were as regular as any other kind of thought, and when you understood the biology, they lost their mysticism._

_Meditation was as effective as packing up evidence files. As was the practise of martial art. Walking. Experiments which would tax the mind of the average PhD student, but not him. Playing the violin, composing. They helped him to think. Helped his mind, which was something far greater than him, to think. And of course, these activities had their secondary advantages._

_Today was no exception. The dear Inspector still, even years on, apparently preferred to have Holmes supervised – didn’t like leaving him with sensitive information at his fingertips, despite his repeated reassurances he had no interest in perusing his mouldering old files. Fortunately, his minder completely underestimated the usefulness of their occupation, and regularly shuffled off to alleviate his tedium. So he had had plenty of reading time._

_The door at the far end of the room opened suddenly, breaking the silence which had cloaked the room for several hours. Holmes closed and shoved the file in his hands into the box, cursing the constable he had spent his afternoon in the company of for suddenly altering his routine, for no apparent…_

_“Oh, it’s you.”_

_“Thought I’d see how you were getting on,” Lestrade walked towards him, a smirk upon his features, pale eyes twinkling._

_Holmes rolled his eyes, adjusted his shirt sleeves where they had slipped slightly down his forearm as he worked. He had divested himself of his jacket and coat on arrival, loosened his shirt collar. He returned to the cabinet._

_“Solved me any nice thirty year-old cold cases?” Lestrade enquired._

_“How could I possibly, when I am not permitted to review the data?”_

_“Not permitted? What do you care about that?”_

_The inspector smiled properly. He shrugged out of his own jacket, draping it over the handle of the trolley upon which the open file boxes were stacked._

_“Little,” Holmes returned his smile._

_He retrieved the file he had been reading, turned to the page he had marked and showed it to the inspector. Just a few moments of conversation between them and a long-doused spark reignited. Lestrade took the file from him and placed it to one side and the two men made arrangements to meet the following day._

_“You know, when I met you, Holmes,” Lestrade said, considering him. “I worried you would exploit your connections to this place, to your brother as well, for nefarious purposes. You were so readily inclined to break the rules.”_

_“Your mistrust was palpable, I can assure you. I was lucky you cultivated a soft-spot a mile wide for the dishevelled young man trailing along in your wake.”_

_“Trailing? You were out in front by a mile in no time!” Lestrade chuckled. “And it was me who was lucky, actually. You were willing to exploit those darker parts of yourself for a greater purpose, in fact, to do it to help people, myself included. Something I hadn’t encountered before I met you. And only a couple of times, since.”_

**_The Watsons._ **

**_Mrs Hudson._ **

**_Dr Hooper…_ **

****

_“This is a character exposition I do not deserve.” Holmes kept his focus away from Lestrade’s face, discomfort in his centre, constriction in his chest cavity._

_“I know you’ll never see yourself as a good man. But don’t worry, we’ll do it for you.”_

_He clapped Holmes on the back._

____________

_Sherlock had told her where to wait for him, so that’s where she was. He had told her what time he would meet her, so she was early. He had told she didn’t need anything with her, that there was no need to change her clothing after her shift. She had completely disregarded that._

_The smell of formaldehyde might have been appealing on him – everything was, it was ridiculous – but she was fine without. She’d nipped out on her break and bought a new outfit, even a new coat! Completely extravagant, but it was a special occasion. Well, nearly._

_She stood by the fountain in the quadrant garden which was at the very centre of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. The lamps around the space were lit, their glow was soft and inviting. Soothing. Such a wonderful little space. No matter the time of day, someone was always here, seeking solace. Perhaps of a kind they couldn’t find in the wards or chapel._

_Molly took a breath to settle the fluttering inside. If you find peace, she thought, you are the luckiest._

_She raised a coin to her lips, the shiniest one she had seen for a while, and had kept safe for this purpose. She kissed it quickly, thought of her dad. Her nanna Violet. Her great-uncle Teddy. Sherlock._

_Her wish didn’t take a full form, she was only filled with a feeling. That was fine. She tossed the coin into the air and watched it splash into the water, ripples moving gently away from the point where it had entered the pool._

_“Hooper.”_

_She turned. Lifted her chin._

_“Holmes.”_

_He stepped towards her, took her hand, raised it to his lips and pressed them to her knuckles, his cerulean eyes only parting contact with hers when he seemed to lose himself in the caress, just for a moment. Molly’s heart swelled, as if it might explode into a million little winged creatures and lift her from the ground as it ascended._

_“You… you look…”_

_Once, he’d commented on her appearance and then he’d had to beg her forgiveness. Lesson learnt. Years passed between then and the next time, when his mouth had all but fallen open at the sight of her in an evening gown and heels, and he had choked out an instantaneous and genuine reaction. He had yet to fully reconcile his obvious want to tell her how he felt when he looked at her with his fear of belittling or upsetting her. But Molly was well practised at helping him._

_“Overdone?” she arranged her face to concern. One thing he was sure to do? Defend her._

_“No! No, you look absolutely beautiful.”_

_“Thank you.”_

_She smiled, brought her hands together in front of her. She had on a pair of black leather boots which laced up the front and black stockings. About an inch of the red dress with the wide roll collar and twist of fabric at the nipped in waist showed below the hem of her black wool cape. This coat had called to her from Selfridges window display. It reminded her of him, somehow. It had two rows of shilling-sized mother of pearl buttons running diagonally from the neckline to the splits through which she threaded her arms, which were swathed to the elbow in the softest and most luxurious black leather gloves she had ever owned. The shop assistants had seen her coming, but she’d felt lovely. Now, watching his eyes sweep over her, devour her, she felt incredible. Her face flushed and she touched her fingers to her hair, which she had caught to one side in a band so it fell over her shoulder._

_Sherlock sighed out a long breath, his features soft and achingly beautiful. “Heavenly,” he concluded._

_It was as if the cabbie had decided to take them a scenic route. Molly wouldn’t put it past the driver to try to eek out the fair, nor would she put it past Sherlock to have had a hand in the seemingly random selection of car. Either way, Molly took the time to thoroughly enjoy the scenery, tucked safely into Sherlock’s side, as they drove along the lamp-lit riverside and around the illuminated spectacle which was Piccadilly Circus. Tens of thousands of bulbs like an urban star-scape._

_They alighted at the Chinatown gate and ate a delicious supper in their favourite restaurant. There, they had been most decidedly overdressed, him suited and booted and her in her film star dress. But they hadn’t commented – hadn’t cared. They were too wrapped up._

_By the time they were walking aimlessly across Trafalgar Square, it was nearing half-past eleven. London did not sleep – it refused to – but Sherlock and Molly found themselves almost alone but for the lions in their watchful repose. The chiming of the church bells rang out in the clear, cold, crystalline air._

_“You owe me five farthings…” Molly sang along. Sherlock smiled._

_“How very nostalgic of you.”_

_They paused at the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields._

_“Do you ever wonder what it must have been like to be standing here in, I don’t know… during the war, or when all this was built…” Molly gestured to the great church, the gallery, the column._

_“The current church was completed in the eighteenth century,” Sherlock said. “Coffee shops had at least become popular, however I think I’ll keep sanitary sewerage disposal and not being chased down by the Bow Street Runners, thank you.”_

_Molly chuckled. “Here was I picturing the age of exploration and discovery, gentlemen in tails and elegant women sweeping up these steps in their fancy dresses.” She paused, wondered. “Why do we romanticise times gone by?”_

_“It’s easier to blame the external – circumstance and the passage of time – for what we dislike in our lives. To imagine things were better in the past.”_

_“You don’t do that.”_

_“No. Bit sentimental for me, don’t you think?”_

_Molly found him looking at her when she turned. His lips were curved into a half smile._

_“I mean you don’t blame external influences for anything,” she watched him carefully as she spoke. “You blame yourself. For everything.”_

_Sherlock’s mouth instantly formed a response, his eyes flitted from hers. Molly prepared herself to argue. But, as quickly as his pique seemed to rise so it seemed to leave him. His frame slumped, almost imperceptibly, and he removed his hand from hers, ran it over the back of his head._

_“That is the burden of knowing the extent of one’s ability,” he said. “I am sensible of my faults, the minutiae of my failings.” He paused. “I am the maker of my own demons… and… those are not created by purity…”_

_“Sherlock,” Molly put her hands on his front, looked up into his lowered gaze and forced him to hold hers. “Stop it. Just stop it. Please…” she laid her hand on his cheek. “You are not a monster. You aren’t a bad person.”_

_“Unfortunately, the world decides that, Molly.”_

_“You are the world, to me.”_

_He huffed out a breath, swallowed, shook his head fractionally from side to side._

_“And you know I’ll tell you what’s what.” At this, he laughed, low, self-deprecatingly. “I just wish you’d listen,” she emphasised her last word._

_“I do! I am,” he took her hands and held them his own in front of him. “I’m trying.”_

_“I know,” she assured him. I’m not going anywhere.”_

____________

_Despite his efforts, the night was wrenching upon him. Allhallowtide traditionally demanded the remembering of departed souls and martyrs. Holmes held no religious faith, but that did not protect him from the pressing-in of vanished spirits all around him, as though the darkness of the city night were composed of them._

_His very first friend, whom he could not save, who died because he was not able to share his affection. The wife of his dearest friend, whom he could not save, who died because he did not. Countless, known and unknown faces and stories and childhoods and dotages plucked from the earth because he was not fast enough, not smart enough, not able, too weak, too afraid…_

_And then, of course, those whom he himself had guided the pointed finger of death towards… whatever the cause, whatever the reason, however hard he tried, the weight would bear down on him forever more and he deserved no less._

_The river._

_Deep waters. All your life…_

_It drew him and he followed. Like The Game. Like a high. Like aloneness._

_She was stood by his side and her hands rested upon the handrail with such a lightness of touch it made his heart ache. Beneath the leather of his gloves, his knuckles might be white. His heart pounded in his chest, surely she could hear it. If she could, it were better she ran for her life._ ****

_Carrying the realisation of how he truly felt about her was like standing before the grenade._

_That catalyst, which begun the chain of events which would send him barrelling into her with his ruined heart a bleeding mess for her to stitch. One move, and his world was blown apart._

_He passed his hand over his mouth, closed his eyes. If he opened them, he would look straight into the eyes of the people who loved Molly Hooper long before him. What would they think, what would they say to him if their opportunity had not been snatched from them?_

_Would he too have to look into the dead eyes in the waxen face, hair a mass of congealed blood..?_

**_Did I make the right choice?_ **

****

_The roads we walk have demons beneath…_

**_What if I am one?_** ****

**_What if my blackened soul leeches its indelible mark onto her?_ **

****

**_Oh God…_ **

**** ****

_“Shhhhhh…”_

_The chaotic whirl turned to static, the hard outlines of images became blurred… When had she put her arms around him? Did her tears begin to fall first or his own? He released the railing and wrapped his arms around her back, drawing her small, strong frame to him._

_“Just give it time,” she soothed. “Just give it time…”_

_“Molly.”_

_They held one another tightly, unwilling to let go. Each lost to their grief but for the determination which arose from the sharing of their presence, their strength._

_All at once, the peeling began. Three, five, six (if one strained an ear) sets of bells rang out uninterrupted across the cloudless London sky, echoing, redoubling, so that by the first stroke of midnight it was as though their symphony had chased away all sound, all sight. All thought._

_Sherlock pulled back from her, pulled his gloves quickly from his hands and took her beautiful face between them, feeling their warmth absorb into her skin in an instant. A kind of desperation rose in him and he wiped away her tears with his thumbs, gently tilted her face so he could absorb every detail, having no real idea what he was searching for, only that it was vitally important, and he would find it here._

_Molly sighed, took hold of his wrists, her eyes closing. Sherlock didn’t know what to say._

_“I love you.” Molly’s eyes shone in the lamplight. That same glow seemed to thread itself into strands of her hair and reflect in the pearl-white buttons on her coat. She smiled. Despite it all, she smiled._

_“I love you.”_

_His lungs filled fully, then, and he lifted his eyes to the stars. Molly giggled and Sherlock’s initial confusion dissolved when he looked at her and he found he couldn’t help but join in._

_She released him, looking down to the ground, pressing her lips together. She unclasped her bag and sought her handkerchief. Sherlock turned back to the railing, scrubbed his hands over his face, ran a hand through his hair. Looked out over the quiet river, the velvet sky, every light in his view shining brighter._

_He looked back at Molly as she closed her bag and cleared her throat. He turned to her. Reaching into the inside pocket of his overcoat, he removed the small, crimson velvet box and held it between his hands._

_“Happy birthday, Molly Hooper.”_

_He placed the box into her hands as she raised them. Her lips were parted, gentle breaths fogging the air, as she opened it._

_“Oh… goodness, Sherlock… it’s…”_

_“Ridiculous?”_

_She scrunched up her nose in response, tilting her head and eying him, with a smile._

_“No,” she said. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”_

_Sherlock took the box from her again and removed the brooch. About the size of a thumbprint, the surface of the sculpted form of a human skull was entirely covered in black diamonds. Except for one larger, white stone, skilfully faceted into the shape of a heart and set where the right eye socket ought to reside._

_He carefully pinned the ornament to the front of her cape, removing his hands to his sides while she looked down, ghosted her fingers over it._

_“Thank you,” she said._

_Sherlock smiled in response, fought the urge to waft away her gratitude and instead made himself quietly accept it. It helped advance the reach of the freeing space he now felt around himself. He watched Molly. Observed her take a deep breath. Observed her curl her fingers into her palms. Smile. Her features brim with light in spite of the cloaking darkness around them. Step towards him, as close as she could possibly be. Reach up, unfurl her fingers to place them at his jawline._

_Then he stopped watching, because she had compelled his eyes to slip closed, his hands to lift and cradle her head once again. To kiss her…_

**_All Saint’s Day._ **

**_Of course I remembered._ **

__________

St Bartholomew’s Hospital

Later that day.

“Did you have a nice birthday, Molly?”

“Yes thanks, Mike. Different… but yes, it was nice.”

“Good, good. What time are they coming in?”

“Three-pm,”

“Can you manage?”

“Yep.”

Mike smiled back at her, halfway out of the lab door. He was late to an observation, but his students would forgive him, and this fond, thoughtful look he was giving her now was part of the reason. He was a nice bloke. He had a lot to answer for! But he was nice.

“Of course you can,” he said.

A quick nod and he was off down the corridor – he’d said hello to several people he met out there before the door had even swung closed. Molly smiled to herself. Then, she returned her concentration to the task at hand. A pretty grizzly murder which she needed to help evidence. She checked her watch; two and a half hours before Greg would turn up, no doubt bringing his backup of choice. She’d better enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasted. 

Molly threaded one arm through the sleeve of her lab coat, then the other, shrugging her shoulders to settle it. She brushed down the front and straightened the lapels. The fingers of her left hand grazed the brooch pinned to the front of her cardigan. She stole a quick look, winked back at it, then got to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3
> 
> Side note: Sherlock’s pique on behalf of the theatre industry is really mine, as you might have guessed. My household relies on the industry and it has been brought to its knees by the crisis. When I was researching London in 1961 and the wrangling over the establishment of the National Theatre came up, I couldn’t resist including it. As well as anything else, the National deserves a loving tribute for keeping me sane through the lockdown with the At Home series. 
> 
> George Bernard Shaw created The Dark Lady of the Sonnets as part of a campaign to establish a Shakespeare National Theatre in 1910, in which Shakespeare himself attempts to persuade Elizabeth I of the importance of theatre for the people. Add in a Hamlet reference, for obvious reasons, and you’ve got a nice little Holmes brother’s plot to convince the government to get on with building the National Theatre... in my head, anyway! :)

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING - please see top notes.


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